


36 Views of Mt. Fuji: Spring

by Mithen



Series: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji [2]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Japanese Culture, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:39:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: Clark and Bruce run back into each other in Japan and end up getting to know each other more as they see the sights--and Batman puts plans into motion.





	1. Chapter 1

_One plum blossom blooms._  
_Another blooms._  
 _It grows warmer._  
 _\--Hattori Ransetsu_  
  
Bruce Wayne waited for the polite applause to die down before he began speaking.  "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Today the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom along the Philosopher's Path here in Kyoto as the air grows warmer.  Here at this conference, I hope our thoughts will likewise blossom."  He tried not think about how he was coming across as he continued with his extremely trite speech to open the Global Warming Conference.  Nobody was looking for words of wisdom from Brucie Wayne, they were looking for him to start the conference without screwing up the participant's names _too_ much.  
  
On cue, Bruce badly mangled one of the seminar leader's names and watched the rippling wince travel across the audience.  He laughed apologetically and got it mostly right the second time.  All right, he told himself, about half done the speech now.  The rest was mostly platitudes about how global warming was a bad thing.  His latest exercise in self-mortification would be over soon and he could go back to being stupid in front of just a few people at a time.  He sighed mentally as he realized a joke was coming up, a terrible pun that half the audience wouldn't get and the other half would think was idiotic.  One had to approach the timing of such an awful joke with great delicacy--Bruce had learned long ago it was surprisingly hard to tell a painfully bad joke to a crowd.  It helped, he had discovered, to approach such rituals of humiliation abstractly, as tests of endurance no less demanding than sitting under an icy waterfall for hours on end.   
  
No one here knew that Bruce Wayne even had the _capacity_ to feel embarrassed by his own callowness, he reminded himself.  That helped, a bit.  He approached the punchline to the terrible joke like a diver on a springboard:  three steps, a spring, and--  
  
In the back of the room he suddenly saw Clark Kent's smiling face, eyes amused and knowing behind thick glasses, notebook poised in hand.  
  
Bruce entirely mangled the punchline of the joke, using the wrong word and losing even the groan-worthy humor of the payoff.   
  
Everyone stared blankly at him, except for the damn reporter, who had the nerve to look _sympathetic._  
  
Bruce decided it was probably strategically sound to allow himself to blush at that point.  So he chose to allow the heat to rise to his cheeks a bit and enhance the illusion that he was embarrassed or flustered.  
  
He _chose_ that.  
  
Then he laughed again, self-deprecatingly, and the crowd joined in.  He made it through the rest of the cursed speech with no mistakes--no _unplanned_ mistakes--announced the seminars for the day, and stepped down to tepid applause.  
  
He tried not to curse aloud or allow his annoyance to show on his face as Clark approached him, hand outstretched in greeting.  He also resisted the impulse to squeeze just a little too hard during the handshake:  it wasn't like it would hurt the Kryptonian, and it would only make clearer that he was annoyed at all.  
  
"Mr. Wayne?  Clark Kent, _Daily Planet,_ " Clark said pleasantly, as if meeting a stranger.  "I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."  
  
"It's my pleasure, Mr. Kent," Bruce replied, flashing what Clark had to know was an entirely insincere smile.   
  
Clark smiled back as though it were genuine.  "What led you to become one of the co-sponsors of this conference?  As a giant of industry in the States, I would think you would join most companies in resisting the Kyoto Protocols and the restrictions implied if global warming is to be accepted as fact."  
  
"'If,' Mr. Kent?  Are you one of those Americans who dismiss global warming as a myth?"  
  
Clark frowned.  "My views are irrelevant here," he said, ignoring Bruce's archly muttered, "Oh really?"  He jabbed at his notebook with a gnawed pencil.  "What has WayneCorp got to gain by fighting global warming?"  
  
"Beyond making the world a better place for future generations?" Bruce said cheerily.  
  
Clark didn't smile this time, just met his eyes knowingly, warmly.  "Besides that, yes, Mr. Wayne."  
  
Bruce did his best to be irritated at Clark's smug assumption that they shared motivations.  "It's excellent P.R., of course!  I've been told by my publicity folks that people eat up this 'green' stuff, so why not jump on board?"  He lined his face up into sudden puzzled concern.  "Should that stay off the record, do you think?"  
  
Clark's lips twitched.  "You might want to stick to your first answer, sir."  
  
Bruce nodded energetically.  "Right, right.  Making the world safe for future generations, that's the reason."  
  
Clark made a few notes, probably about what a colossal ass Bruce Wayne was.  "I know you're a busy man, but one more question:  based on all this work and effort, can I conclude then that you believe the strong and powerful should work together in some kind of...confederation, association..."  Clark snapped his fingers absently.  "What's the word I'm looking for?"  
  
"League?"  
  
The other man's face brightened comically, "Exactly!  That the strong and powerful should form a 'league' to pool their powers to the benefit of humanity?"  
  
Bruce reached out and slapped Clark's shoulder familiarly.  "That, sir, is a wonderfully quaint little idea!  Very charming."  He bared his teeth at the reporter.  "You get that together sometime and tell me how it works out, m'kay?"  
  
Clark grinned unrepentantly at him.  "Maybe I will."  He scribbled something in his notebook and nodded.  "Well, you seem to be a very busy man, so I'll let you get to the hours of meetings and seminars ahead of you."  
  
Bruce almost laughed, then caught himself.  "And you have fun _reporting_ on those hours of meetings, Mister Brent."  
  
"Kent."  
  
"Right.  Kent."  
  
Clark watched Bruce wander off, gladhanding various personages, then sighed and made his way to the first seminar of the day.  To his surprise, it was actually rather interesting:  a discussion of new advances in hybrid cars.  Bruce wasn't at this particular seminar, but Clark had no doubt they'd run into each other again.  He was rather looking forward to it.  Superman had met up with Batman a few times in the nearly four months since their trip to Japan, but Clark and Bruce hadn't interacted out of costume since that evening at the Manor.  Watching Bruce give his speech, watching him deliberately mispronounce names and look incompetent--it had been interesting.  There was something deeply... _voyeuristic_ about watching Bruce play his public role, knowing that he was the only person who knew the real Bruce Wayne.  The only person there who knew that behind the vapid smile and the blandness lay one of the sharpest, most fearsome minds in the world.  He saw again the flicker in those dark blue eyes when they had met Clark's:  _I see you, Bruce.  I see you there._  
  
There was applause, and Clark stared around the room.  The presentation had ended and he hadn't taken any notes, hadn't even heard the speech.  Damn.  An eidetic memory didn't help much if you didn't pay attention at all.  _Sloppy work, Kent,_ he chastised himself.  
  
He slipped out of the hotel to find a cheap ramen shop for lunch rather than the expensive hotel food and stood, slurping noodles thoughtfully, enjoying the bustle and noise around him.  Kyoto might have the largest concentration of national treasures and landmarks in Japan, but there were large sections of it that were just as chaotic and grungy as any other city.   
  
He liked that.  
  
Back at the conference, he found himself at a panel being chaired by Bruce, a round table on whether global warming was reversible and when the trend would become irreparable.  Bruce's lips tightened very slightly when he saw Clark enter the room, and Clark had the same feeling of pushing aside a veil for just a moment, seeing the spark of annoyance in those eyes, the hint of wolf before they widened into lamb again.  Bruce was charmingly clueless, and the panel members tried to hide their exasperation at his obtuse questions and have a meaningful discussion around him.  
  
After the panel, Clark found himself dragged into a corner in the hall by Bruce.  "Stop following me around," Bruce snarled.  
  
"I'm not 'following you around,' Perry told me to focus on the question of reversibility in my story."  
  
Bruce leaned into Clark's personal space, talking at him.  Batman had a tendency to do that, automatically trying to intimidate Superman the way he did criminals--and, well, everybody else in the world.  Clark had never felt particularly intimidated in the past when Bruce did it;  he didn't feel particularly intimidated now, really, with Bruce's face just a few inches from his, his hand planted firmly on the wall next to Clark's head.  Not intimidated, but...something seemed different about his reaction to Bruce's invasion of his space, somehow--  
  
"Have you heard anything I've been saying?" Bruce said in exasperation.  
  
"No, not particularly," Clark answered truthfully.  
  
Bruce shoulders drooped in exaggerated exasperation.  "I'm trying to tell you I'm _busy_ and you're _distracting_ me."  
  
"I'm just sitting in the same room as you.  If that's distracting, you need to have better concentration, Bruce."  
  
Bruce's eyebrows contorted and he raised a finger to shake at Clark's face, but before he could speak a woman's voice interrupted him.  "Wayne- _san!_   There you are!"  Bruce stepped back as a Japanese woman in her mid-thirties wearing a black pants suit approached them.  Her hair was dyed light brown and brushed her shoulders;  Clark noticed her eyes were a surprisingly light golden brown as she drew near.   
  
She stopped and bowed to Clark, who bowed back.  "I'm sorry, Chiaki," said Bruce pleasantly.  "You were looking for me?"  To Clark he added, "This is Chiaki Yamaoka, my Japanese interpreter."  The woman bowed again as Clark smiled at her, then took out a business card and handed it to him politely with both hands.  
  
"Wayne- _san_ ," she said solemnly, "We need to get to the next seminar if we don't want to be late."  
  
Bruce grinned at her.  "Sorry, Chiaki," he said.  "Just catching up with Mr. Grant here."  
  
"That's Kent," Clark said dutifully.  
  
"Right, whatever."  Bruce started to say something to the interpreter, then looked beyond her and darted into the hall abruptly, grabbing at a Japanese man's sleeve.  "Mr. Matsunaga, sir!" he said a bit breathlessly.  
  
The accosted man pivoted to face Bruce, eyeing him sternly.  He was an older man in his sixties, Clark guessed, squarely and powerfully built, with an impassive face like a bulldog's.  "What do you want?"  he demanded in decent English.  
  
"Matsunaga- _san_ of Matsunaga Construction?" asked Bruce, and Clark realized that this must be Seio Matsunaga's father.  Seio Matsunaga, Bruce's former classmate and friend, murdered four months ago by Kyodai Ken for getting too close to unravelling an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister.  "I'm Bruce Wayne," Bruce was continuing, reaching out to pump Matsunaga's hand energetically.  "It's just great to finally meet you, sir."  
  
Matsunaga looked down his nose at Bruce appraisingly.  " _You_ are Mister Bruce Wayne?" he said somewhat disbelievingly.  
  
"Yes, and I just wanted to say..." Bruce took a deep breath and carefully spoke in Japanese that had clearly been phonetically memorized,  < I'm looking forward to working closer with you and your company a great deal.  Together we can accomplish many things. >  
  
Clark heard the interpreter suck in her breath a little and was inclined to agree.  Bruce had used Japanese forms that were completely inappropriate for the situation, so casual as to be insulting.   
  
Matsunaga stared at him wordlessly for some time, then seemed to decide that the ignorant foreigner couldn't know any better. "It is my pleasure," he said stiffly.  "I will be having a cherry-blossom viewing party tomorrow night.  Would you like to attend?"  At Bruce's enthusiastic nod he gave the time and place, adding, "Bring a friend if you like."  Then he turned rather ponderously and disappeared down the hall.  
  
Bruce walked back to Clark and Chiaki, wiping his hand on his pants, apparently unconsciously.  "Wayne- _san_ ," said Chiaki rather faintly, "Might I suggest you stay with English and allow me to translate for you?"  
  
Bruce beamed at her.  "Are you sure?  I thought I said exactly what I wanted to say."  


* * *

  
Clark was leaving the conference hotel for the evening when he heard Bruce's voice behind him.  "Clark!  Hey, Clark!"  
  
He turned to see Bruce extricating himself from the tangled grasp of an extremely attractive blond woman in evening wear, her hair piled on top of her hair in elaborate ringlets.  "Sorry dear," he said, patting her on the shoulder, "I'd love to chat more, but I have to talk to my friend here."  
  
Clark had no illusions about anything Bruce said in public being sincere, and yet he couldn't help feeling warm at hearing Bruce call him a friend.  _Clark, you idiot._ The woman waited nearby, her arms crossed impatiently, as Bruce came up to Clark.  "You're not staying in the conference hotel?"  
  
"As if Perry would spring to put me up there!  No, I'm at a business hotel near here."   
  
He named it and Bruce grimaced, then leaned forward, talking loud enough for the blonde nearby to hear.  "You say you can't find your hotel?"  
  
"No," said Clark caustically, but Bruce ran over his words.  
  
"Oh, I know the way there.  I'll walk you there, the streets here are like a maze."  He trotted back to the waiting woman and spoke to her.  "So sorry, honey, the guy needs my help.  No sense of direction whatsoever.  I'll have to take a raincheck."  The woman raised golden eyebrows in something like a sneer and stalked away.  
  
Bruce came back to Clark, rolling his eyes slightly.  "She didn't look like too much of a trial to spend an evening with," Clark noted, watching her swaying, silk-clad retreat.  
  
"You didn't have to _listen_ to her," Bruce said fervently.  "Trust me, your company is _far_ preferable."  
  
Clark snorted.  "She's that terrible, huh?"  
  
"Oh yes," Bruce said blithely.  
  
"Well, I'm going to hold you to your promise, even if I do know the way."  
  
Bruce sighed.  "If that's the price I have to pay to get away from the Harpy, I won't complain."  
  
"The Harpy?"  
  
"Adytha Harpwell?  The supermodel?"  Bruce shook his head at Clark's blank expression.  "You have _no idea_ how much I envy your not having to know things like that," he said as they struck out across the city.  
  
Clark's room was a box with a bed and a tiny desk and about four inches of extra space.  "It has a certain _je ne sais quoi_ ," Bruce said cheeringly as Clark sat down on the sagging bed.  "It could have been worse, he could have put you up in a capsule hotel."  
  
Clark shuddered as Bruce pulled the chair from the desk and sat backwards on it, straddling the seat.  "How's Richard?"  
  
"Dick's doing fine--you _can_ call him Dick, you know.  Everyone else does."  
  
"I'll wait until he asks me to," Clark said, remembering the way the boy's shoulders had squared at having Superman call him by his full name.  "Is he still--does he still want to get out on the streets with you?"  
  
Bruce put his hand to his forehead briefly.  "Would you believe I've been doing my best to discourage him?"  
  
"Yes," Clark said shortly.  He might have imagined that Bruce looked a little relieved at his reply.   
  
The playboy crossed his arms on the back of the chair and buried his head in them.  "Right now he's busy trying to design a costume and pick a name.  God, Clark, you would not _believe_ what he's come up with."  
  
Clark remembered some early drawings in his own house of "Black Nebula, Avenger from Beyond the Stars," and "The Kryptonian Vindicator," drawn before he had come to see it as inevitable he would wear the red and blue of his heritage.  He had never really expected Lois to tag him with such an _...unimaginative_ moniker.   "Let me guess--a trenchcoat and black combat boots?"  
  
Bruce raised his face enough to narrow his eyes at Clark.  "Hardly. _You_ have had an unhealthy effect on his fashion sense."  
  
Clark couldn't help laughing.  "All right, now I can hardly wait to see the designs."  
  
Bruce groaned dramatically and changed the subject.  "Are you going on one of the sightseeing tours tomorrow?"  
  
Clark nodded.  "The one that goes to Ryoanji and Sanjuusangendo."  
  
"Oh?  I'm going on that one too."  It was hard to tell from Bruce's expression if he was annoyed or pleased by the coincidence.  He drummed his hands restlessly on the back of his chair for a moment, then stood back up.  "Well," he said, rather awkwardly, "I should let you get some rest in your palatial surroundings."  
  
"You too.  In your case, probably a bit more truly palatial."  
  
Bruce grunted assent and turned to the door.  "Night, Clark," he said as it swung shut behind him.  "See you tomorrow."  
  
"See you tomorrow," echoed Clark.   
  
Alone in the room, he stood and opened the tiny window the crack it was allowed, letting spring air into the musty room.  It smelled very faintly of the blossoms that were opening everywhere, silently, all over the city.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce visit a variety of temples in Kyoto while generally attempting to act the part of foreign idiots.

_How invisibly_   
_it changes color_   
_in this world,_   
_the flower_   
_of the human heart._   
_\--Ono no Komachi_

Chiaki Yamaoka put her hands on either side of the sink and glared at herself in the mirror.  "Guts up, Chiaki!  You can do it!" All things considered, it wasn't like this was the _worst_ assignment she'd ever had.  Her client was merely annoying, obtuse, narcissistic and ethnocentric;  so far he hadn't tried to grope her or insisted on calling her his "Yokohama Mama" like that jackass philanthropist from Star City a few years ago.  And the first day was over and done!  Chiaki nodded at her reflection, her eyes set and determined.  It was, as they said in English, a piece of cake!  There were only three more days to go, after all.

_Three more days!_

Chiaki Yamaoka, interpreter for billionaire Bruce Wayne, put her forehead against the mirror and moaned quietly to herself.

* * *

"There sure are a lot of stairs here," complained Bruce Wayne as they made their way toward the temple, climbing up the stone steps laid into the hill.  He stopped to catch his breath;  Chiaki tried not to glare at him.  His companion, the reporter from the Daily Planet, also leaned against the rail and rested.  Americans were so out of shape!

"We should probably try to catch up to the rest of the tour group, Bruce," said the reporter--Kent, that was his name.  Clark Kent. 

"Well, they didn't all need to _sprint_ like that," grumbled Wayne, slowly continuing his ascent.  It wasn't like the billionaire even _looked_ out of shape;  Chiaki was forced to admit that he cut rather a nice figure in his pinstriped charcoal-gray suit.  But he clearly wasn't used to having to _walk_ where he needed to go.

They emerged at the top of the stairs to find a small temple in front of them.  Behind them stretched a stunning panorama of Kyoto, nestled within its circle of hills.  "What's the name of this place again?" Kent asked, squinting at his map.

"It's called Suzumushi-dera, or the Temple of Crickets," Chiaki said, relieved to be able to slip into tour guide mode.  She herded them toward the main hall as she explained, "It was founded in 1723 and got its name because its founder supposedly achieved enlightenment while listening to the crickets singing around the temple."  From inside the hall, a complex tapestry of creaks and chirps became audible as they drew near.  "In memory of that, the monks here keep crickets alive year-round at the right temperature to make them sing."

"Enlightenment through bugs, huh?" said Wayne.  "I guess I've heard of stranger things."

Kent smiled and pushed his glasses up on his nose.  He had rather a nice smile.  "Now, if it were enlightenment through, say, bats--that would be truly weird."

Wayne snorted.  "Yeah, damn weird," he agreed as they removed their shoes and entered the lecture hall to join the rest of their group.

The hall was tatami-lined, with long tables set up for guests to sit at.  At each place setting was a cup of hot green tea and a couple of small sweets on a napkin.  At the front of the room was a large case full of insects, from which came the symphony of chirruping.  A smiling monk in ochre robes, his head shaven, waited for the latecomers to sit down cross-legged on the floor and then began his lecture.

Chiaki translated in whispers for the two men as they drank their tea and nibbled on the hard, crumbly sweets.  It was basically a history of the temple and a brief discussion of the concept of enlightenment.  As the monk neared the end of his speech, Chiaki explained, "He's saying that the crickets here are treated very well, as holy creatures.  They live full and happy lives, and when they die--" She broke off as a ripple of laughter went around the room.

"What'd he say?" Wayne demanded, then popped his last sweet into his mouth.  He glanced over at the reporter, chewing, and Kent coughed and looked down at his cup of tea, biting his lip.

Chiaki paused to savor the moment just a bit, then explained. "He says that when the crickets die, they're ground up and made into the sweets we're eating, so that all of us can have a taste of blessedness." 

The look on Wayne's face made up for a lot of what Chiaki had had to endure the last two days.  "Oh," he said, swallowing gingerly.

Across the table, Clark Kent burst into laughter.

* * *

"More climbing," Bruce said plaintively.  "Why'd they have to build all the temples in the hills, anyway?"

Their interpreter, walking well in front of them, muttered something rather rude, too quietly for anyone but a Kryptonian to hear.  Then she turned and said politely, "Temples were used to retreat from the politics and intrigue of the capital, so they were usually in the hills."

They were walking up a narrow street paved in stone on their way to Kiyomizu Temple.  On either side of the street were a multitude of little souvenir shops where one could buy anything from wind chimes to wooden Buddhas, fresh rice crackers to wall hangings of the latest popular boy band.  Clark found his attention caught by a set of cherry-pink teacups;  he turned them over in his hand thoughtfully.

"Buying a souvenir for that raven-haired reporter of yours?"  Bruce was suddenly at his shoulder.  He laughed at Clark's expression.  "Oh yes, I keep track of these things;  I know who you've been seen with lately."

"You would," Clark grumbled, putting the tea cups down and picking up a silk handkerchief.  Nothing in the store really seemed to suit Lois.

He supposed that included Clark Kent.

He didn't feel like discussing it with Bruce, certainly, but things hadn't been going very well with Lois for the last few months.  She liked Superman and tolerated Clark when she noticed him, but even she had noted that her Kryptonian suitor had huge sections of his life that were walled off to her, huge sections of his personality that she had no access to.  It didn't matter whether it was Superman or Clark she was interested in--she didn't know that Superman grew up milking cows, and she didn't know that Clark Kent was an orphan from the stars.  As long as Clark kept his secret, she really could never know him well enough to love him. 

That realization, Clark thought sadly, was probably why he hadn't really felt much of a connection with his co-worker lately.  When he had first come to Metropolis, Lois was on his mind constantly.  He had fantasized about her silky black hair and her soft skin almost every night;  it had driven him nearly crazy to be near her at work all the time, unable to touch her and kiss her...But lately she just hadn't been on his mind as much.  Instead he found himself thinking of his superhero life as he drifted to sleep:  how to convince Bruce to help found the League, what the perfect team would look like, his latest case with the Toyman and whether he should ask Batman's advice on a set of clues...he was probably working too hard if Lois could no longer take his mind off work.  And there was definitely something wrong if his fantasy sex life had dropped off so dramatically.  Yet somehow he didn't feel particularly stressed, or deprived.  Very odd--

"Kent!"  Bruce's voice broke into his reverie.  "Head out of the clouds, man, we have to catch up."  Beyond him their long-suffering interpreter was trying not to look too impatient.

Clark put the handkerchief down and hurried after Bruce.  He'd buy something for Lois later.

* * *

"This is more like it," Bruce said appreciatively as they approached the next temple, which was a long, low building of dark timbers and whitewashed walls.  "No stairs, no slopes.  I like this one.  What's its name?"

Chiaki looked very tired.  "This is Sanjusangendo."

"That's a mouthful," Bruce said cheerily, entering the building.  "What's its shtick?"  He made a mental note to find some way to sneak extra money into the interpreter's fund:  no one should have to ferry the two of them around like this. 

"It features one thousand and one statues of Kannon, the Bodhisattva of mercy."  The three of them went around the corner to enter a long hall.  On their right was the external wall of the temple;  on their left, row upon row of nearly-identical wooden statues, gleaming with gilt, each with a quantity of arms raised in blessing.  They gazed benignly at Bruce, who stared back.  So much benediction.

"A Bodhisattva," Chiaki was explaining patiently, "Is a being who has achieved enlightenment, but who has chosen to stay in this world rather than enter Nirvana, until all other beings also achieve enlightenment."

Beside Bruce, Clark murmured softly, "The number of beings is endless. I vow to help save them all."

Chiaki looked startled.  "Yes, that's from the Bodhisattva Vow."  She looked narrowly at Clark, who glanced away and shuffled his feet.

The interpreter continued as they made their way past the array of statues.  "It's said that because Kannon can take the form of any being, everyone can find a statue here that resembles their own face."  She smiled wistfully.  "When I was a little girl I would come here and look for my face and the faces of my family."

Clark peered exaggeratedly at the statues.  "I don't think I'll find one here that looks like you, Bruce," he said.  "None of them are grouchy enough."

Indeed, all the statues had roughly the same enigmatic, remote smile.  Bruce started idly looking for one that resembled Clark.  That one's ears were a bit too large...that one's eyes a little too close together...that one's nose just a touch too big.  He sneaked a look at the Kryptonian out of the corner of his eye;  Clark was busy admiring the statues, a small smile on his face.

It was hopeless, Bruce was forced to admit to himself.  None of the statues looked quite like Clark.  None was quite perfect--

He yanked his attention back to the statues as Clark turned to grin at him, and focused on asking Chiaki more stupid questions.

He wasn't sure why he felt as though he'd just come within inches of walking off a precipice.

Outside the temple, the early spring sun was bright and clear.  A scattering of cherry blossom petals wafted over the compound's walls and into their path.  Clark absent-mindedly caught one as it fluttered by, turning it over in his hand.  Bruce stretched, his hands over his head.  "Three down, one to go, huh?  Let no one say we haven't seen enough temples to last a lifetime."  Beside him he felt more than heard Chiaki's tiny sigh and promised himself to double her bonus.  Getting to watch Brucie unknowingly eat crickets had probably been quite satisfying, but was hardly a tangible reward.

* * *

Chiaki Yamaoka cringed as the three of them approached Ryoanji;  Zen gardens were always the most difficult.  Western visitors always wanted _explanations_ and _interpretations_ , which wasn't the point at all.  Both men had become more quiet as they made their way through the rolling, mossy grounds;  they both seemed to be thinking about something.  Or maybe they were just tired.

Chiaki certainly was.

Eventually they made their way to the stone Zen garden.  The rest of the tour group was milling about and chatting on the wide wooden veranda that overlooked the garden.  Wayne settled down on the soft, polished wood and crossed his legs, looking out over the raked white pebbles and dark rocks, oddly graceful even in his formal suit.  After a moment, the reporter sat down next to him.

Chiaki joined them and together they gazed at the garden.  In the yard in front of them, small white rocks were carefully raked into patterns around fifteen larger stones:  Lines of white pebbles like waves that broke into circular ripples around the dark stones.  No greenery broke up the austerity;  stone and gravel framed by a plain ochre wall behind it.

It was one of Chiaki's favorite sights in Kyoto, and she never tired of sitting and watching the spaces and the tensions between the rocks, the freedom and the restraint...the freedom _within_ restraint, beyond words and knowledge.  But she knew that couldn't be expressed, so she gathered herself back into tour guide mode, turning mentally from her own contemplation.  "Ryoanji is considered the pinnacle of _karesansui_ , or the dry garden style, which uses rocks with minimal greenery."

"What does it _mean?"_   Wayne asked a bit petulantly, and Chiaki bristled.  Always with the stupid questions!

"Some interpret the garden as islands in a vast ocean.  Others as mountains rising out of fog."

"I see rocks," said the playboy.

Chiaki paused, the irritation knocked out of her somewhat.  "That's actually--" _despite yourself--_ "A very Zen answer, Mr. Wayne.  To focus on what the garden _truly is_ rather than what is appears to be."

"Sh," said the reporter suddenly, putting his hand on Wayne's arm, staring out at the garden.

"What do _you_ see, Clark?" asked Wayne, looking at Kent with a small smile.

Kent continued to gaze at the rocks, rapt.  "Everything," he said softly.  He seemed to have forgotten to remove his hand from the other man's arm.  After a moment he added, almost too softly for Chiaki to hear, "I see us."  He sounded slightly puzzled, and a little surprised.

Bruce Wayne turned to look out over the garden, falling silent.  The rest of the tour group moved and shifted around them like waves around stones.  Long after they were gone the two of them continued to look out at the garden, at the spaces and the silences, deeper than words and more vast.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cherry-blossom-viewing party: flowers, the moon, and ephemeral beauty.

_In spring on castle heights_

_they celebrate the flowers;_  
_In the cup they share_

 _the moon casts a reflection._  
_\--Doi Bansui_  
  
Bruce Wayne sat at yet another conference table in front of yet another audience, this one on industry's responsibilities to curb climate change.  He was sitting next to Shigeru Matsunaga, who was snoring slightly.  Bruce resisted the urge to elbow him sharply between his meaty ribs.  Instead he poured Matsunaga another cup of strong green tea, the classic mark of social inferiority in Japan.  Matsunaga took it from him with a grunt and slurped it loudly.  Bruce tried not to grind his teeth.  
  
In the audience, he caught a flash of startling blue eyes and a glimpse of smile.  Clark Kent.  Bruce waited for the stab of irritation and tension that accompanied having Clark watch him playing the idiot, but it didn't quite materialize.  He was apparently getting used to it.  He had to admit it had been...different...sightseeing in persona in the morning, having someone around who knew it was all an act.  It made it more of a challenge in some ways, but also more like a game, somehow.  Less of an abasement and more of a shared joke.  
  
Bruce wasn't exactly sure he wanted to be in on a shared joke with Superman, exactly.  He knew the type:  warm and sunny, give them an inch and next thing you know they seem to think they have a right to your time and friendship.  Start trading knowing looks with Clark Kent and soon enough the Kryptonian would be assuming Batman was going to build a space station for this "Justice League" with his bare hands or something.  
  
He wasn't sure when he had gotten to the point where he was feeling--he groped for the right word-- _not displeased_ to see Clark in the audience.  It seemed to have happened as quietly and yet as abruptly as a flower opening:  a bud one moment, the full-blown bloom the next.  
  
"--isn't that true, Mr. Wayne?"  The chair of the panel looked annoyed as Bruce looked confused--and didn't have to fake it for once.  He had entirely missed the question, had to have it repeated, and looked a convincing moron indeed.  Because he was thinking about _flowers_ and _Clark Kent._  
  
He caught the edge of the reporter's ironic gleam in the crowd again and grimaced to himself.  No need to tell Kent he hadn't been acting that time.  


* * *

  
Clark heard Bruce coming down the hall toward him as the conference attendees trickled out of the hotel.  "Really, Adytha," he was saying in his mild, smooth playboy voice, "I so would love to take you to the blossom-viewing.  But I--" Bruce's voice brightened as he caught sight of Clark, "I promised Mr. Kent here that I'd take him along.  Right, Clark?"  Bruce's smile was all teeth, and Clark nodded reflexively.  
  
Adytha Harpswell smiled at Clark as well.  Clark felt rather like a minnow caught between two sharks.  "Brucie, hon, are you telling me this is your _date_ for the evening?"  She eyed him speculatively, and Clark felt a hot blush rise to his cheeks unbidden.  She was very beautiful, her dress clinging to her in all the right places, and Clark felt a surge of annoyance mixed with embarrassment that he didn't feel the slightest bit of sexual interest in the woman.  Where the hell had his libido gone for the last four months?   
  
"Don't be silly, dear.  Clark is writing an article about my involvement at this conference, and while you can get _me_ into the papers, Mr. Kent can get _WayneCorp_ into the papers.  It's strictly business."     
  
Adytha looked dubious, brushing her ringlets of golden hair back from her face and pouting.  "Well, I'll just have to find another date, then.  You're not the only fish in the sea, you know, Brucie."  She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then flounced off.  
  
"She makes me feel like sushi," Bruce complained with a sigh.  He grimaced at Clark's expression.  "Sorry, Clark."  
  
"You know, I do have other things to do with my time than function as your personal supermodel repellent."  
  
The other man looked surprisingly contrite.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that without checking with you.  So what have you got on the agenda tonight?"  
  
"Uh."  Clark had just been back to Metropolis over lunch to make an appearance there;  he was forced to admit he had no other plans for the evening.  "Actually...I'm kind of free."  
  
"Oh?"  Bruce said rather diffidently.  "Well, if you're not busy, you can come along if you like."  
  
Clark remembered the look on Bruce's face as he had accepted the invitation from Shigeru Matsunaga, the tone in his voice as he had used the exact wrong Japanese to introduce himself.  He felt a tickle of intuition that he couldn't quite pin down.  "I'll come.  I've never been to a cherry-blossom viewing party."  
  
Bruce grunted.  "Matsunaga will do it up right.  His company may be in the red--strictly off-the-record--but it's important to keep up appearances."   
  
Indeed, Matsunaga had spared no expense.  Clark and Bruce arrived at a private garden reserved for the evening, the moon clear and full above their heads.  Quiet, beautiful women in kimono handed out tiny cups of nearly-transparent porcelain filled with sake.  Bruce moved to be closer to Matsunaga, chatting with him animatedly.  Matsunaga had Adytha Harpswell hanging off one arm and was somewhat flushed with drink;  he even laughed ponderously at a joke Bruce made.  
  
Clark wandered off to give Bruce some space, keeping one ear on the conversation.  The garden was filled with cherry trees at the peak of their bloom, masses of white blossoms tinted with pink like clouds above the guests' heads.  A few delicate petals drifted down here and there like flakes of snow;  Clark felt an odd sense of _deja vu,_ but shook it off impatiently.  He settled down under a low cherry tree and found himself sitting next to Chiaki Yamaoka, Bruce's interpreter.  He inclined his head towards her as he sat down and she smiled at him.  "He doesn't seem to be needing my help today."  
  
Clark watched Bruce tilt his head as he listened intently to an anecdote the CEO was recounting, his teeth flashing appreciatively.  "He seems to be doing all right tonight."  
  
Chiaki took a tiny sip of sake.  "You probably think we Japanese are rather obsessed with cherry blossoms."  
  
"They're very beautiful."  
  
"It's more than that, they're the ultimate in the Japanese aesthetic."  At his interested but uncomprehending look, she smiled again and continued.  "We Japanese prefer our beauty to be ephemeral and fleeting, gone almost before one can be aware it exists.  The very transience of beauty renders it perfect.  Cherry blossoms instead of stone, here one moment and gone the next."  She reached out and picked up a cherry blossom from the ground and handed it to Clark:  the flower laid in his hand whole and unfragmented, perfect.  "Cherry blossoms fall at the very moment of their glory.  They never wither.  For one flawless instant they exist and then are gone forever.  The pinnacle of perfection."  She sipped her sake again and smiled over the rim at Clark.  "Most Westerners I've known don't see it that way."  
  
Clark was watching Bruce laughing at something Adytha had just said, his dark hair falling onto his forehead, his hands graceful and poised as they plucked a rosy petal from her hair.  He looked down at the flower in the palm of his hand.  "The pinnacle of perfection," he echoed.  He sipped at his sake.  It tasted like moonlight.  
  
"Let me refill your cup," Bruce was saying to Matsunaga.   
  
"Thank you, Wayne- _san_.  You are most considerate."  
  
"I do hope you'll consider my offer to make the ties between our companies a little more official, sir."  
  
Matsunaga chuckled.  "You make a compelling case."  
  
Clark looked up at the moon through the cherry blossoms.  Thoughts were clicking inside his head, connections, implications...he stood up and shot a look at Bruce, sitting under the largest tree next to Matsunaga.  As if he had felt Clark's gaze on him, Bruce looked up to meet his eyes, then rose and made his apologies to Matsunaga.  He walked up to Clark, nodding to Chiaki, and the two men walked together for a little while through the garden under the cherries.  
  
"Bruce."  
  
"Yes, Clark?"  
  
"Your friend, Seio.  He was killed by Kyodai Ken because he uncovered evidence of a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister."  Bruce said nothing.  Clark went on, putting the pieces together.  "The Prime Minister was giving a speech that day about reforming the construction industry, removing the graft and corruption in it."  They were in a grove of weeping cherries now, their boughs drooping gracefully, covered with white blossoms like veils.  Bruce slipped through the branches, appearing and disappearing as Clark talked.  "Seio's father runs the biggest construction company in Japan.  And you've hinted that Seio and his father didn't always get along."  Clark stopped walking and so did Bruce, strands of cherry blossoms between them in the moonlight.  "Bruce.  Are you trying to find a way to have Matsunaga arrested?"  
  
Bruce laughed lightly, his playboy's laugh, sweet and innocuous. "Arrested?  Oh no, Clark.  That would hardly be satisfying.  If my suspicions are correct--"  He smiled cheerfully at Clark, his dark hair tousled like a boy's.  Clark saw his eyes and shivered.  "--I intend to take away everything that's ever mattered to him."  White petals floating in the air around him.  
  
"The police can have what's left of him when I'm done."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce convinces Clark to avail himself of the hotel's baths and Clark has an inconvenient realization.

_O brightness_  
_of peony's buds_  
_softly splitting open!_  
_\--Hoshino Tatsuko_

Bruce Wayne drained his cup of sake and stood up, teetering slightly.  "Thanksh for your hospi--hospitiality, Mr. Matshunaga," he said politely.  He bowed and almost fell over.  "Better be toddling back to the ol' hotel now."  He spotted Clark Kent and threw a friendly arm over his shoulders.  "Clarkie!  Lesh head home."  
  
Clark steered him toward the garden gate, Bruce's feet sure and steady despite his weaving walk.  As they left the garden, he looked over to see Bruce grinning.  "You seem pleased with yourself."  
  
"You bet I am.  I've got that bastard eating out of my hand."  Out of sight of the cherry-blossom viewing party, Bruce pulled away from Clark's arm, dusting off his suit.  
  
"Do you have any hard evidence he was involved in the assassination attempt?"  
  
Bruce frowned.  "In the letter Seio left me, he mentioned he was worried about something like that, that his father might finally go too far in protecting the company interests.  But besides that, no, nothing solid.  Just a gut instinct."  
  
"You can't arrest a man on a gut instinct."  
  
"Nope.  That's why a couple of capes are going to be breaking into Matsunaga Construction headquarters tomorrow night and looking for evidence."  
  
"Oh, no you don't."  Clark crossed his arms and looked mulish.  "Not without a more reliable lead than that."  
  
A flicker of anger in sapphire eyes.  "If Seio said there was something suspicious going on, there was something suspicious going on.  And now Seio's _dead_ , Clark--or have you forgotten that?"  
  
"I haven't forgotten that," Clark said, stung.  "But we caught the man who killed him."  
  
"But perhaps not the man who was responsible.  Kyodai Ken may have just been the murder weapon;  the true murderer might have been Shigeru Matsunaga."  Bruce glared at Clark, all the false mellowness of drunkenness gone.  "Damn it, Clark, I'm not going to let Seio have died for nothing."  Clark scowled wordlessly and continued to stalk down the street.  Behind him, Bruce's voice:  "I might--I might need your help on this one, Clark."   
  
Clark swung around to stare at Bruce.  "You?  Might need _my_ help?"  
  
For just a moment, Bruce's face looked very young in the moonlight.  "Seio trusted me and died.  No matter who I have to ask for help, I'll avenge him."  He cleared his throat.  "Please."   
  
Clark found himself at a loss for words.  "Let me sleep on it," he muttered.  
  
Bruce loped to catch up to him.  "Good idea.  And I need to take a _long_ hot bath to get the Harpy's perfume and Matsunaga's greasiness off of me."  
  
"Lucky you," Clark couldn't help but grumble.  "At least _you've_ got some hotel baths you can use;  I've just got that thimble in my room."  
  
"That's true."  Bruce shot him a glance.  "You didn't seem particularly keen on the baths last time, getting naked in front of strangers and all."  
  
Clark remembered the bath up in the mountains under the sky, snowflakes melting into the water and starring Bruce's hair.  "Well, the bath itself was nice."  
  
The other man flashed teeth at him in a near-smile.  "Come bathe at my hotel.  No one will dare call you on not being a paying guest if you show up with me."  When Clark paused, he reached out and punched him playfully on the shoulder.  "You gotta bend the rules sometimes, Clark.  Stick it to the man, as Ollie would say."  
  
Clark snickered despite himself.  "Somehow I don't think Ollie sees himself as a champion of free public baths."  
  
"Oh, come on, " said Bruce solemnly.  "Restricted bath privileges are _so_ a tool of the bourgeoisie to keep the common man down.  Why do you think they call them 'the unwashed masses,' anyway?"  
  
"You're terrible," Clark said, laughing.  "All right, I'll steal the precious resource of hot water to make a political point."  
  
The baths at Bruce's luxury hotel turned out to be hedonistic indeed; a cavernous hall of champagne-colored marble, the showers to the right and the bath itself, a huge rippling pool, to the left.  Clark entered the room holding the tiny towel gingerly in front of him;  Bruce didn't even bother bringing a towel in at all, strolling in as if shame were something for lesser men.  
  
Clark perched on the little plastic shower seat in front of the spigot and started to wash off, enjoying the strong hot water on his body.  He sneaked a glance over at Bruce, who was rinsing shampoo out of his hair, his back turned to Clark.  A trail of soapy white suds slid from slick black hair and began to descend along Bruce's back, coasting over one shining wet shoulder blade.   
  
Clark couldn't seem to look away from the line of soap, making its inexorable way down across Bruce's skin.  
  
Below the blade the bubbles caught on a sloping, diagonal scar and slid along it until they came to the furrow of Bruce's spine, nestling into the long, narrow hollow, drawn by gravity, the pull of the Earth itself, until they reached--  
  
Clark jerked his gaze away, feeling very uncomfortable.  The Man of Steel, hypnotized by soap bubbles!   
  
Bruce ran his hands through his hair, shaking out excess water, then stood and made his way toward the bath, tapping Clark briefly on the shoulder as he went by.  "Meet you there."  
  
Clark turned the water on very, very cold and rinsed the soap off his own body.  Then he walked over to where Bruce was already lounging in the water.  
  
"Bruce, why is the water white?" The bath water was a uniform opaque white, like liquid pearls.   
  
Bruce smiled lazily.  "Mineral bath, Clarkie."  
  
"Again with the Clarkie," Clark grumbled as he lowered himself into the water.  "Only assholes ever call me Clarkie."  
  
One lean hand appeared out of the milky water to wave regally.  "Guilty as charged."  
  
The water was pleasantly warm;  combined with the color it felt rather like drifting in a cloud.  He closed his eyes and let his mind wander where it would, enjoying the break from the stresses of the day.  Letting his mind float like clouds...like soap bubbles, skating freely...  
  
He came to himself abruptly from a half-doze.  He was warm--surprisingly warm--and his heart rate was higher than it should be.  
  
He was also, he realized with chagrin, physically aroused, the warm water eddying around an uncomfortably tight erection.  Clark felt intense gratitude that the opaque water hid his state from the other people in the bath.  He looked stealthily at Bruce to make sure the other man didn't look suspicious.  Bruce's eyes were closed, damp eyelashes shadowing his cheeks, his face flushed and sweaty with the heat, wet curls of dark hair on his forehead.  He didn't seem to have noticed anything.  He looked eminently relaxed and at ease.  Clark, on the other hand, suddenly felt anything but.  
  
For the last few months, Clark hadn't thought about sex at all;  what a time for his libido to re-assert itself!  His pulse was hammering with tension, he could hardly even think, he was so keyed up.  He wanted--he wanted-- _God_ , he was so desperate.  What had he been half-dreaming of?  He couldn't remember.  Was it Lois?  Was it that supermodel, that Adytha?  
  
On the other side of the bath, Bruce licked sweat off his upper lip with a damp pink tongue.  
  
Clark felt swamped with dizzy lust, his pulse kicking at him.  All right, maybe it _was_ Adytha Harpswell.  He had been thinking about Adytha under the cherry tree with Bruce, perhaps.  He remembered them sitting there, Bruce's hand lingering maybe just a bit too long on one silk-clad thigh, strong fingers on bright blue--no, Adytha had been wearing yellow, he reminded himself.   
  
Clark struggled for breath.  He probably shouldn't be thinking about this.  Bruce had brushed her golden hair back, as if he were going to kiss her neck.  Clark imagined Bruce leaning forward and pressing his lips to that creamy throat, how her head would fall back because it would feel just too damn good (dimly he felt the back of his head touch the marble wall behind him), pulse racing under his lips, out of control, finally out of control.  How Bruce might slide one of those graceful hands across her ass, making it tighten under his touch, anticipating...imagining that wry mouth trailing down his--down _her--_ chest, lower, lower...  
  
Clark bit his lips hard, realizing that he was thrusting involuntarily into warm and yielding water.  If only he could touch himself, just a little, it would feel so good...God, he couldn't believe he was even thinking of that, thinking for a moment of masturbating right in front of _Bruce Wayne_ \--  
  
He heard himself gasp slightly at that, a stab of exquisite pressure tightening his balls, and found his thumb and index finger around the base of his cock.  _Stop it, Clark._ He managed to hold steady, not moving, too desperately aroused to even risk motion.  
  
Bruce stirred and stretched, not noticing Clark's discomfort.  "Well, I've had enough," he said, and began to move.  
  
"Wait," blurted Clark.  Bruce paused, looking puzzled.  Clark didn't know why he had halted Bruce;  if he was worried about this damn erection he could just stay here until it was gone.  But he felt a strange intuition, a feeling of threshold, of imminent and undesired enlightenment:  if he watched Bruce Wayne get out of the bath at this moment, he couldn't--he wouldn't be able to--  
  
Clark didn't know what would happen, but he knew he didn't want to see Bruce getting out of the water.  "Just--let's stay a little longer," he said awkwardly.   
  
Bruce smiled cheerfully (another hammer-blow went through Clark) and settled back in the water.  "You're tougher than I am, man, this is almost too hot for me."   
  
Clark struggled to calm down, to cool down, to stop thinking about Adytha (Bruce's hands on her, lips on her, her cherry-red lips around his cock, sucking)--he tried to breathe steadily.  It was no use, he couldn't seem to keep months' worth of desire bottled up, and his brain kept coming up with more and more libidinous images of Adytha with Bruce, both of them naked in his mind now, Bruce getting ready to fuck her from behind, his face tight with desire, blue eyes burning, his hands reaching out and tangling in black-- _golden_ \--hair, pulling his head back as he finally-- _finally--_  
  
Bruce kicked the water somewhat impatiently.  "Much more and I'm going to be a prune, Clark.  You can stay if you like."  Before Clark could stop him, with a quick and fluid motion he pulled himself out of the bath.  
  
Water cascaded in sheets down and across his naked body, across lean muscle and shining skin, down long athletic legs, glimmering in the dim lights of the bath, impossible, totally impossible to look away from.  
  
Clark Kent saw what he truly wanted.  
  
Bruce slicked back his wet hair and strolled toward the towels.  Clark watched him go.  Shock, ice-cold as a glacier, had entirely removed the immediate physical problem;  the emotional problem was another thing altogether.  
  
Clark Kent submerged himself entirely in the bath, pearly water closing over his head, closing his eyes.  Against his eyelids he could still see Bruce Wayne walking naked toward the door, perfection in physical form.  Eidetic memory.  He was never going to be able to forget that now:  _how what you want above all else looks as it walks away from you, how what you'll never have looks as it recedes from your view._

* * *

  
Bruce was lounging in a massage-chair near the bath entrance when Clark emerged from the bath, back in his reporter's suit but still scrubbing at his hair with the towel.  Bruce dragged himself out of the chair's all-encompassing embrace to join the other man.  "Let's get a nightcap," he said cheerfully.  "I've got a proposition for you."  
  
Clark looked awkward, blushing a startling crimson.  "Uh," he blurted, then fell silent.  
  
Bruce shot him a brief scowl before going back into playboy mode.  "You're not on the job, Kent, you can have a couple of drinks with your ol' pal Brucie."  He took the shrinking reporter by the arm and dragged him to the hotel bar, settling in a booth.  "So," he said cheerfully to Clark, who seemed to be looking anywhere but at him, "How about a Screaming Orgasm?  My treat."  
  
"I'm...sorry?"  Clark looked somewhat taken aback.  Quite taken aback, actually.  
  
Bruce pointed to the drink menu.  "I'll buy you a drink.  Have you got a problem with vodka and amaretto?"  
  
"No."  Clark blinked.  "That sounds okay."  
  
"Screaming Orgasms it is."  He looked up from the menu at Clark's red cheeks.  "For Pete's sake, Clark, you can't possibly be so unworldly that a suggestive drink name makes you blush."  
  
Clark appeared to gather his dignity.  "Of course not!  I have no problem saying..."  he stammered slightly, "Scr-screaming Orgasms.  Doesn't bother me a bit.  I have no problem with screaming orgasms in general, actually," he added thoughtfully, then blushed even more while Bruce smirked.  
  
"Why Clarkie, you naughty boy, you."  Bruce paused to order their drinks while Clark creased and uncreased a napkin.  He leaned forward and pulled the pleated napkin away from the Kryptonian.  "So, Clark," he said, keeping his voice in the innocuous playboy register, "You're from Metropolis, so I figured I could ask you:  I've invited your Superman fellow to come to the conference tomorrow to shake some hands and sign some autographs for the cause, but I haven't heard from him.  Do you think he'll come or will he just blow me off?"  
  
The reporter blinked at him again and Bruce wondered if he had perhaps been a bit too subtle for him, but then he seemed to figure out what was going on.  "Oh!  Oh, I'm sure Superman will show up if you asked him.  Global climate change is something he takes very seriously.  He told me so, during an interview," he added earnestly, totally deadpan.  "Maybe he's just been too busy to give you an R.S.V.P."   
  
Their drinks arrived and Bruce sipped at his.  "Well, I hope he can make it for the keynote address tomorrow at eleven.  He won't be giving a speech," he added hastily as Clark's eyes widened, "Just, you know, being there and adding his stamp of approval to the whole deelybob.  Shaking hands, pressing the flesh, you know."  
  
"Pressing the flesh," Clark muttered, apparently to himself, then shook his head vigorously as if to clear it.  "Right.  Yes, I'm sure he'll be there."   
  
They talked about their respective schedules for the coming day for a while, then Clark frowned deeply and leaned forward a bit, dropping his voice.  "Bruce.  This is probably going to sound odd, but...has there been any sign that this conference might be targeted by criminals?  Like, say...Poison Ivy or something?"   
  
Bruce felt a stab of alarm and had to work to keep his face serene:  Clark sounded terribly troubled.  "Have you heard something?"  he asked, dropping his voice as well.  "Have you seen something?"  
  
"I...no, nothing in particular, but..." Clark paused.  "Wouldn't this venue be her kind of target?"  
  
Bruce cocked a puzzled eyebrow at the man across the table.  "An environmental conference?  Wouldn't she be more likely to _support_ it?"  
  
"You never know with villains," Clark said somberly.  "So, you haven't detected any signs of...spores or...anything?"  He rattled the ice in his drink and took a long swallow.  
  
Bruce began to suspect that Clark was making fun of Batman's "endless unnecessary paranoia."  Well, two could play that game.  "Stuff and nonsense, Clark," he said cheerfully.  "Besides, if Superman's going to be here, a villain would be nuts to target us, right?"  He made energetic shadow-boxing motions.  "Biff.  Pow.  All that.  I mean, totally screwed, right?"  
  
"Pow," Clark said rather dolefully, staring at the bottom of his glass.  He sighed.  "Well, thanks for the drink.  Good luck getting Superman to come.  To the conference, I mean," he added hastily, as if clarifying something.  "I guess I should be getting back to my hotel."  
  
Bruce frowned.  "Are you all right, Clark?  You seem unhappy about something."  He let the ghost of the playboy dissipate and met Clark's eyes squarely for a second.  The Kryptonian's eyes widened a bit, bright and almost startled.  
  
"I'm fine."  Clark looked down and traced a finger around a ring of condensation on the table.  "Thank you for asking, though."   
  
He looked so woebegone for a moment that Bruce couldn't help but put out a hand and touch him on the shoulder, turning it into a playful shove at last second.  "Hey."  Clark didn't look up.  "You know if you have a problem, you can tell me, right?"  Offering a sympathetic ear was sheerly pragmatic, he reminded himself:  the world did not need a depressed or distracted Superman.   
  
The other man just smiled slightly.  "It's kind of personal, Bruce.  It's just...something I'm going to have to get used to."  He nodded reassuringly.  "Don't worry about me."  
  
"Well, someone has to," grumbled Bruce, feeling only slightly reassured.  "Dick would never forgive me if I didn't step up to the plate."  
  
Clark's grin was more genuine this time as he stood to go.  "Tell him I said hi."  
  
"Will do.  And pleasant dreams."  
  
"Eidetic memory," said Clark with a wan smile, but didn't explain the non-sequitur.  "You too, Bruce."  
  
Bruce sat for a while longer in the hotel bar after Clark was gone, wondering how he was going to convince Clark to do some discreet breaking and entering with him.  Eventually he sighed heavily:  there was only one thing he could think of that would create enough of a sense of obligation in the big lunk.  
  
Batman might just have to have to join that damn Justice League after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Superman and Clark Kent both seem to have rather busy love lives today. Bruce Wayne is annoyed. These two statements are entirely unrelated.

_Once, far over the breakers,  
I caught a glimpse  
Of a white bird  
And fell in love  
With this dream which obsesses me.  
\--Yosano_ _Akiko_  
  
Bruce was reading the morning's _USA Today_ , trying to glean some useful news from the chaff.  He glanced up to see Clark Kent making his way past the hotel restaurant.  He rattled the newspaper and Clark glanced over, then looked startled to see him.  Bruce waved at the empty chair across from him.  "Got somewhere else to be?"  
  
Clark hesitated.  "No...not really, I guess."  He settled down at the table with Bruce and ordered some juice.  Bruce was somewhat surprised to notice that Clark's suit fit better than usual-- a stylish navy-blue double-breasted blazer, with a muted azure silk tie setting off Clark's eyes nicely.    
  
"You look good," he said appraisingly, raising his eyebrows.  "I haven't seen that suit before.  Not exactly your usual style."  
  
Clark looked down at his suit and brushed at the lapels a little.  "I just bought it recently.  When I was in Paris."  
  
"When were you in Paris?"  
  
"Recently."  
  
Bruce grinned at him.  "Fine, fine, I get it.  Super-secret shenanigans, none of my business."  He took a bite of pancakes.  "Anyway, it suits you.  I'm surprised you're willing to wear it, it almost makes you look a little _too_ good, if you know what I mean."  Clark stared at him and he said, "Generally you don't want to look as good as you could, Clark."  The Kryptonian wasn't usually so slow on the pickup about identity-shuffling.  
  
"Oh yeah, that," Clark said belatedly.  "Well.  I like this suit."  He sipped his juice and looked out at the people walking by outside.  
  
Bruce rapped the table lightly, dragging Clark's eyes back to him.  "Clark," he said, dropping his voice just enough to make clear he was talking about the other side of their lives, "About what we talked about last night.  That favor I want you to do for me tonight?"  
  
One of the reporter's eyebrows flicked upward just a bit, but then he mouthed, "Oh," seeming to remember their conversation about breaking into Matsunaga Construction.  "I don't know about that, Bruce," he said dubiously.  
  
Bruce leaned forward and got into Clark's space a little, gracing him with one of his most charming smiles.  "Clark.  How about a trade:  You help me tonight, and I promise I'll join that little group you're putting together."  
  
An impossibly sweet smile, the kind that explained why tough reporters like that Lane woman got annoyingly swoony around the man.  "Really?  You'll join?"  
  
"A _trade_ , I said.  Join me tonight and I'll commit."  Clark sat back, frowning, and Bruce pressed on, "That's one night's work for an unlimited commitment--that works out damn well for you, Clark."  
  
The smile turned slightly wry.  "You were going to have to join up eventually, Bruce.  As if you'd let that pass without being in on the ground floor."  
  
Bruce felt irritation knife through him:  the Kryptonian hadn't needed to point that out.  He ground his teeth but kept smiling.  "Trade?"  
  
Behind the thick glasses, the blue eyes were suddenly steady.  "Nothing too far out of...acceptable range tonight."  
  
Bruce was able to smile more genuinely at that.  "I promise I won't ask you to go outside of your comfort zone, Clark."  
  
The laser-blue eyes sharpened almost alarmingly, then flickered.  "Any further, you mean," the other man muttered.  Then he glanced at his watch.  "Whoops, I have a panel I need to be at in just a few minutes."  He fumbled for money to cover his juice;  Bruce let him this time.  
  
"I'll see you at the keynote address?" Bruce asked.  
  
Clark looked chagrined.  "Golly, I was planning on coming, but I don't think I'm going to be able to make it.  I'm really sorry, Bruce!  And I heard that Superman was going to be there too...I would have liked the chance to see him."  He sounded so legitimately downcast that Bruce couldn't help but smile.  
  
"Maybe I can get his autograph for you, Clark."  
  
Clark's grin deepened.  He had dimples.  What the hell kind of adult man had dimples without looking totally ridiculous?  "That would be really swell of you, Brucie."  He walked off toward his panel through the crowd and Bruce watched him go.    
  
Kent really shouldn't wear suits that fit that well;  he was going to draw attention to himself.  


* * *

  
Bruce glanced at his watch;  Superman was late.  There must have been some world emergency he had to go off and deal with.  Well, you couldn't really expect making a P.R. appearance at a conference to trump cleaning up after an earthquake or something.  He stood up and was about the announce that he was sorry the Man of Steel hadn't been able to make it when there was a blur of motion at his elbow.  He looked over to see Superman standing right by him, his hair slightly tousled and his cape just a bit askew.  
  
The Kryptonian smiled at him as the audience murmured in appreciation.  "I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne, there was a sinking ferry near Okinawa.  I came back as quickly as I could."  He held out a hand to Bruce.  "Thank you so much for inviting me, sir."  
  
Bruce reached out and took the offered hand.  It felt very odd, to be interacting with Superman in public while dressed as Bruce Wayne.  He had taken Superman's hand before, but there had always been a layer of kevlar and leather between them.  He realized abruptly he had still never felt the texture of Superman's costume with his bare hands.  "We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to come here, Superman."  The material looked like satin, but it was hard to tell what an alien fabric would feel like to the touch.  The scientist in him itched to know.  
  
"Not at all," the superhero said, looking out over the crowd.  "Global climate change is a terribly important issue, a disaster that even the world's superheroes may be unable to stop.  Only international cooperation can ensure a beautiful Earth for future generations."  He smiled that terrifyingly placid and trusting smile, so different from the usual shy smile of his alter ego.  "Earth is my adopted home.  I would hate to lose this world that I have come to love so much."  
  
The keynote address by a noted scientist was almost an anticlimax, of course.  Bruce sat behind the speaker's podium next to Kal-El.  The Kryptonian seemed entirely enthralled by the speech, nodding as the scientist explained certain key concepts in the problem.  The science was, of course, simplified to a layman's level, and Bruce already knew all the more advanced theory behind it.  He could probably even get away with looking bored, since no one would expect a playboy billionaire to be able to follow the speech.  On the other hand, he didn't want to look _too_ bored and undermine the message that global warming was something important.  
  
He eventually decided to go for "blank but sincere."  Unfortunately, once he had chosen a listening style, he had little left to do but ponder how unnervingly weird it was to be sitting in regular clothes next to all that shining spandex.  _Spandex-like material,_ he corrected himself.  It was actually some alien polymer.  It could potentially feel totally different than it looked.  It might be warm to the touch rather than the coolness one would expect.  It could be almost entirely frictionless.  It certainly shed dirt as if it were.  But no, if it were that frictionless he would have noticed it with his gloved hands.  It wasn't that slippery.  Just smooth.  More subtle gradations of texture were impossible to discern with gloves on.  
  
A fold of red cape hung just a few inches from his hand.  Bruce resisted a crazy urge to slip his hand over and catch the cloth between his fingers.  If only he could get some of that cloth back to the cave and analyze it more thoroughly.  It could be very useful, understanding Kryptonian cloth.  Polymers.  Chemical formula.  Texture of cloth.  
  
It was a very boring speech.  
  
After the speech, both Bruce and Superman were chatting with various pundits, leaders, and scientists, both in different circles of conversation.  Bruce could hear Superman's mellow voice switching from Japanese to French to Tagalog as his conversational partner changed.  Bruce looked over at the Kryptonian, deep in an abstruse conversation with a leading climatologist.  It must be nice to be able to be aware and intelligent in public;  no one ever risked boring Bruce Wayne with in-depth analyses of science or politics.  
  
"Superman!"  Bruce heard a familiar voice above the murmur of the crowd and caught a flash of red:  supermodel Adytha Harpswell, at the conference at the bidding of her publicist.  The blonde woman threw her arms familiarly around the superhero's neck.  "I'm your _biggest fan,_ Superman," she purred, and then she grabbed his head and kissed him.  
  
Bruce waited for the Kryptonian to politely brush off the clinging woman, perhaps to make an abashed apology.  
  
Instead, he was as shocked as the rest of the room when Superman returned the kiss, deepened it, and then dropped the model into a passionate dip.  
  
By the time Superman righted Adytha, she was pink-cheeked and giggling like a schoolgirl.  "Oh _my,_ " she said rather incoherently.  "Um...yes, well!"  She looked around the room and seemed to realize she was surrounded by people.  She laughed nervously and waved.  "I'm going to go just...sit down.  Over here," she said weakly and made her way to the chairs at the edge of the room, where she was immediately mobbed by a group of other young women.  
  
Bruce strolled over to Superman and tapped him on the shoulder.  "Oh!" said the Kryptonian as he turned and saw Bruce.  "Um, yes, Mr. Wayne?"  
  
Bruce held out his notebook.  "I have a friend who asked me to get your autograph.  He said you were a real role model to him of _restraint_ and _decorum_."  He drawled the words with some sarcasm and enjoyed watching Superman look uncomfortable.  Bruce shoved the notebook at him.  
  
"Who would you like me to make it out to, Mr. Wayne?"  
  
"Clark Kent.  C-L-A-R-K-K-E-N-T.  And you can sign it 'Love and kisses, Superman.'"  
  
Superman scowled and signed it "Best regards" instead.  Bruce noted with interest that his handwriting as Superman was different than his handwriting as Clark:  bolder and more slanted.  Deliberate or unconscious?  Probably the former.  
  
"Well," Bruce said as Superman handed it back.  "I'm sure you have other gorgeous supermodels to buss, so I won't take up any more of your time."  He turned his back and strolled off, feeling annoyance clenched in his gut--annoyance over how what a waste of time the speech had been, over being away from Gotham for four days, over not having any Kryptonian cloth to analyse.   
  
Bruce Wayne was very annoyed.  
  


* * *

  
Back in his navy blue suit, Clark Kent sighed and sat down in a hotel lobby chair to catch up on some emails, most of his mind still on that kiss with Adytha Harpswell.  
  
As an attempt to prove his straightness to himself, it had failed spectacularly.  In the middle of a passionate clinch with one of the most beautiful women in the world, all he could think of was that Bruce would never put up with being dipped like that.  He had spent most of the kiss imagining the scene if he had tried to do that to Bruce, and how Bruce would probably fight to dip _him_ instead, and then he'd gotten thinking about how that could devolve into wrestling for control of the kiss, and how Bruce's body would press up against him, searching for weaknesses and finding the crucial one...  
  
He had ended the kiss flustered and aroused, but Adytha had unfortunately little to do with it.  
  
Clark stared at his Blackberry without really seeing it.  He had never been sexually attracted to men before--that time he caught himself thinking Hal Jordan had a pretty nice ass totally didn't count.  Did it?  Clark wasn't sure anymore.  But he'd only ever been sexually active with woman.  Where "being sexually active" meant "kissing," Clark admitted reluctantly to himself.  But he knew he was attracted to women--he'd certainly indulged in enough lurid fantasies about Lana, about Lois (and sometimes, to his chagrin, about Lana _and_ Lois) to put to rest that point.  But now he wanted Bruce.  Oh, did he want Bruce.  He'd laid there in bed last night too hot and bothered to sleep, terrified to masturbate because somehow he felt that coming while thinking of Bruce would make it just that much more real.  Maybe if he could hold off that impulse it would go away.  
  
It certainly hadn't gone away yet.  
  
Clark groaned and hit himself gently on the head with his Blackberry.  So did this mean he was bisexual?  Was he gay and just overcompensating all those years?  What the hell, he wasn't even _human!_   He was the last of his kind;  he had no idea how Kryptonian sexuality mapped onto human assumptions.  He supposed he was just lucky that Kryptonians were capable of cross-species sexual attraction at all.  
  
He didn't feel lucky.  He felt worried and wistful and desperately horny and like he wanted to sneak off into a restroom _right now_ and imagine what it would feel like to have Bruce beneath him.  Or above him or behind him or anywhere near him as long as they were both naked, he didn't much care.  
  
Clark fidgeted in his seat and tried to focus on email.  He was still trying when a cheerful female voice interrupted him.  "Mr. Kent!"    
  
Chiaki Yamaoka, Bruce's interpreter, dropped into the seat next to him.  "I've got a moment while he's listening to an English speech and you looked like you could use a sympathetic ear."  
  
Clark managed a wan smile.  "Oh, it's nothing.  It's just...Have you ever found out you've wanted something for an incredibly long time and you didn't even know you wanted it?  And then you don't know what it _means_ that you want it?  And you have to change how you think about yourself because you want it?"  
  
Chiaki pondered.  "No," she said, flashing a wicked smile at him.  "Tell me more."  
  
She may well have seen enough of him and Bruce together to have figured him out.  Looking back on their time in Kyoto two days ago, Clark realized with chagrin that he'd probably been ogling Bruce like a lovesick puppy.  Good thing Bruce hadn't noticed.  Had he?  A flash of panic until Clark reassured himself that if he had he probably would have said something sarcastic and cutting about it.  "Well," he said slowly to Chiaki, "It's just--lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about myself and my life, and stuff."    
  
"That clears things up a great deal, Mr. Kent."  
  
"Oh, call me Clark.  And I know it doesn't.  But I just--It wouldn't ever work.  We're just too different.  And uh--" Clark groped for the best pronoun, "--they don't like me that much anyway."  He sighed and buried his face with his hands.  Chiaki leaned over and touched him lightly on the shoulder, then opened her mouth to say something.  
  
A voice cut in behind them.  


* * *

  
Bruce strolled out of the latest speech into the lobby where he was supposed to meet up with his interpreter.  He spotted her sitting in a chair, chatting with--Clark?  As Bruce watched, she put a hand on his shoulder, smiling.  
  
Clark, you _dog._  
  
"Hey!" he said cheerfully, coming up behind them.  Chiaki smiled; Clark jumped about a foot in the air.  "Clark,　I got you that autograph you wanted."  He handed Clark the notebook page with Superman's bold scribble on it;  Clark stared at it blankly then tucked it into his briefcase.  "You missed a great speech."  He pulled up a chair and grinned at Chiaki.  "So, are you two talking about Superman's appearance?"  
  
"Oh no," said Chiaki.  "Clark had just asked me out to dinner this evening.  And maybe some dancing."  
  
Bruce felt his teeth grind just a little.  "I thought Clark already had plans for this evening--don't you, Clark?"  _Plans to go breaking and entering with Batman?_   He glared daggers at Clark, who was looking blankly astonished for some reason.  
  
Chiaki looked disappointed.  "Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude," she said sadly.  "Maybe...brunch tomorrow, then?  Here at the hotel restaurant at eleven?"  
  
"Sure," said Clark, still looking surprised.  "Brunch sounds good."  
  
Bruce stood up and adjusted his suit coat.  "Well, I hate to break you two lovebirds up, but I need my interpreter for the next panel."  
  
"We're not loveb--" Clark began, and Chiaki leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.  He turned crimson.  
  
"See you tomorrow, Clark," she said sweetly and headed toward the next panel.  Bruce followed her, but turned at the last moment to give Clark a killing look.  
  
Clark was still sitting in his chair, staring after them.  As Bruce turned to glare he raised his hands in a shrug of complete confusion, shaking his head and looking bemused.  
  
Bruce swung back and and stalked after Chiaki, fuming.  His interpreter's attention was being diverted by Clark, Superman was forgetting his obligations to Batman, and there was still a full afternoon's worth of meetings to get through.  On top of it all, Clark was macking on at least two different women and had the nerve to act as though _he_ was confused!  
  
Bruce Wayne was _very, very_ annoyed.  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Superman and Batman do some breaking and entering, Clark takes a cold shower, and Bruce deals poorly with a crisis, among other things.

_Awake tonight_   
_with loneliness,_   
_I cannot keep myself_   
_from longing_   
_for the handsome moon._   
_\--Ono no Komachi_

Superman moved slowly over the Kyoto skyline, heading to where Batman was supposed to be waiting for him.  He felt a strange mix of anticipation and worry.  He hadn't seen Batman in costume since his realization last night that he was attracted to Bruce Wayne.  Maybe when he saw Batman some of that interest would dissipate.  After all, Batman was hardly a sexy figure.  He was scary, and sullen, and generally very difficult to work with.  Not "attractive" at all.  So Superman harbored some hope that when he saw Batman--and was reminded of Bruce's darker side--some of the desperate yearning would abate.  All things considered--

"You're late."  The gravelly voice reached his ear and Superman jerked sideways a few feet as Batman seemed to materialize from the shadows at the top of the building Superman was passing.  He stepped to the edge of the building and glared at Superman hovering in the air.  His cape whipped around him like silken wings and his eyes were hidden;  the cowl only served to emphasize the strong jawline and stern mouth of its wearer.  Batman crossed his arms across his armored chest in a rippling storm of black cloth.  Superman could faintly smell leather and sweat on the air between them.

No, seeing Batman wasn't going to help at all, Superman was forced to conclude.  It was only going to make things much, much worse.

Business.  He had to focus on business.  "Tell me the plan again," he said, just as if he had some reason to hear the details once more beyond wanting some excuse to hear that voice, so much lower than Bruce's, rasping against his ears.

"We've been over this," Batman growled.  You'd think being growled at by a crabby Bat would be a turn-off, Clark thought miserably, instead of...what it was.  "This is the main office of Matsunaga Construction.  We're going to get in there and see if we can find anything incriminating, anything that will give us a lead on what move to make next."

"Right.  Got it."

"You'd better," Batman said, swinging fluidly down the side of the building to the window.

* * *

"I don't see anything of use on any of the letters on his desk," Superman said tersely after a moment staring at Matsunaga's huge ebony desk.

Batman flicked on the three computers sitting in a bank against the wall.  "Check these," he said, going to rummage in turn on the desk.  After a moment he looked over to see Superman closing a window on the screen.  "What are you doing?  Can't you just...scan them?"

"I can't read digitized information, Batman.  I probably can't read what's on these computers much faster than you can, actually.  I'm limited by the speed the documents will open."

Batman made an annoyed sound.  "Then go through his filing cabinets.  If we don't have to unlock them all the better.  Leaves fewer traces."  He began to type at the computers.  After reading a file, he said, "Have you seen any memory sticks around here?  There's something here that hints at the key information being on a memory stick."

"There are some in this drawer," Superman said, pointing to a filing cabinet.  "But nothing useful on hard copy."

Batman growled and deftly jimmied open the cabinet.  Inside was a welter of memory sticks of all kinds and colors, dozens of them.  The pair stared at them.  "No time to look at them all.  No way to take them without drawing attention.  But one of them has what I need."  He banged the cabinet with his fist, glaring, then opened his hand and shot a glance at Superman.  "Well.  I'll have to think about this."  He slid the drawer shut and re-locked it, then went to the window and slipped out into the night sky.

Superman stayed caught up with him, of course, until he came to rest on top of the five-storied pagoda of Toji Temple, dark wood beneath his boots.  The Kryptonian slid through the air effortlessly to settle next to him and stare out over the city in silence for a moment.

"Bruce."  Superman's voice was as gentle as the wind.  "I know Seio was a friend of yours, but...promise me you won't do anything rash to his father.  Even if you find out he is guilty."

Batman chuckled, very low, and Superman shifted uncomfortably next to him.  He shot the other man a sardonic look.  "Clark, I promise I won't hurt him.  I might scare the hell out of him, and I plan to take him down if he did it, but I swear I won't hurt him."

Superman sighed.  "Well, good.  I trust you."  The wind rustled through his cape and a fold of scarlet cloth whispered across Batman's legs.

Before he realized exactly what he was doing, Bruce had his gauntlet off and the cloth between his fingers, touching it speculatively.  It was indeed warmer than expected, but the texture was very odd--slippery and yet velvety at the same time, it gave beneath the fingers while leaving a strange impression of softness.  Its molecular structure must be very alien to achieve that effect--did the Kryptonians have polymers that hadn't yet been discovered on Earth?  Or perhaps this was a natural material on Krypton?  Bruce frowned,　then realized that Superman was staring at him.  He dropped the cloth.  "The resiliency and dirt-repellent properties of your costume are very intriguing," he explained.  "I would welcome the chance to analyze some if you have any spare material."

Superman reached up and unclasped something, and the whole cape came slithering off into his hands.  "Here," he said, holding it out.  "I can have the Fortress make another one," he said as Bruce hesitated.  Bruce reached out his hands, greed overcoming reticence, and as he did the wind blew the cape up against him, tight against his body for a moment.  He pulled it free with a silken-velvet crackle, like static, and held it in his hands.

Superman was still staring at him.  The Kryptonian took a couple of steps away from him as he looked up from the cape and almost fell off the edge of the pagoda, floundering into the air ungracefully.  "Well."  Superman said.  "I guess I need to.  To go.  To my hotel room.  Now."  The words seemed to be dragged out of him.  "Right now."  He was gone before Bruce could say good-bye.

Batman folded up the cape--which collapsed into an impossibly tiny square--and tucked it away in his belt.  He was in no hurry to get back to his hotel room, so he simply sat for a while on top of the pagoda, looking out over Kyoto.  He was thinking of Seio, his first real friend since that night in Crime Alley.  His easy laugh and the curve of his cheekbones.  Shattered blue porcelain on the tatami between them the night he had told Seio he had to leave Japan.

Not that cold body in the small apartment.  That wasn't Seio.

Seio had never been cold.

* * *

Red cloth on black leather.  Red cloth on black leather.  Pressed against it, curved against it.  Tightly.  Red cloth.  Black leather.

Clark was taking a cold shower, which meant little when he could bathe comfortably in liquid nitrogen.  He tried it anyway.

It didn't help a damn bit.

* * *

Bruce Wayne was having breakfast with Adytha Harpswell in her suite, since she had refused to go out for breakfast.  He was stifling a yawn.  Adytha, rarely a good conversationalist at the best of times, was particularly boring this morning.

"Brucie, is there any chance you could, you know, tell him I'd like to see him again?"  Adytha fluttered her eyelashes at him.

"He seems to have made a big impression on you, dear.  I'm sure it was his progressive views on global warming that did it."

She missed his ironic tone.  "Oh no, it was actually that kiss.  I couldn't possibly expect you to understand what it _felt_ like, Bruce.  I've never felt anything like that in my life, really.  No offense, hon," she added hastily.

"Well, one could hardly expect to compete with Superman, after all," Bruce said easily.  _Besides which, I never put my heart into it with you anyway._

"I suppose not," sighed the supermodel.  "He's really...quite stunning, isn't he?"  Her voice was dreamy.

Bruce felt a stab of annoyance, which was ridiculous--Kal was welcome to the vicious, backstabbing, _tasteless_ cat anyway.  "He puts his pants on one leg at a time like all of us, Adytha."

Her eyes grew large.  "Are you _sure?"_

Bruce had an image of Clark levitating into his suit pants and almost snickered, but didn't need to worry about stifling his mirth as his cell phone rang, interrupting the conversation.  "Sorry, dear," he said to the eye-rolling Adytha.

The conversation that followed went from casual to increasingly alarmed on Bruce's part, until he finally made some hasty apologies to Adytha and bolted into the hall.  Clutching his phone, he stared around the blank hall, feeling something surprisingly close to panic.  Groping for a solution mentally, he suddenly came across the answer:

Clark would know what to do.  He had to find Clark.

He took off for the hotel restaurant.

* * *

The hotel's waffles were really quite good, but Clark was hardly tasting them.  Chiaki Yamaoka sat across the table from him, making small talk and eating her own set of waffles.  Clark wasn't exactly sure how he had ended up here on what practically seemed to be a date.  He was rather afraid that his vague conversation about wanting what he couldn't have might have been misconstrued by the interpreter as interest in _her._ But her manner wasn't flirtatious at all, just friendly.

"Clark!"  He looked up to see Bruce Wayne coming at him across the room, nearly at a run, cell phone against his ear.  "Excuse me," Bruce said hastily to Chiaki, then turned back to Clark.

Clark jumped to his feet at the look in Bruce's eyes.  Visions of catastrophe in Metropolis, in Gotham, danced before him.  "What is it?"

"He's having nightmares.  Dick is.  He's afraid and he can't sleep, he's crying and nothing I say is helping, Clark, what do I say?  Will you talk to him?"  Bruce held the phone out with a look of naked appeal on his face.

Clark shot Chiaki an apologetic look, but she was already standing up, smiling.  "I need to go freshen up," she said, waving Bruce into her seat.  "Thanks for the breakfast, Clark."  And then she was gone.

Clark would have been mystified, but he didn't have the time:  a small and tear-stained voice on the other end of the phone caught at him.  "Su--Clark?"

"Hey," Clark said, hearing his voice waver between the two personae and settle somewhere in the middle.  "Hey kiddo.  Bruce says you're having some problems sleeping?"

A muffled noise on the other end of the line.  "I keep seeing them when I close my eyes.  They fall and I can't catch them, and then I jump after them and I fall too, I fall and fall and fall and fall and--"

"Richard," Clark cut into the litany.  "Hey.  It's all right."  Bruce was staring at him, his eyes shadowed, and Clark realized suddenly that Bruce didn't know how to answer the boy because he didn't have any real answer to his own nightmares.  _Falling, always falling._ "I'm not going to tell you the nightmares will go away, Richard, or that they shouldn't bother you.  Because they should.  I'm just--I'm just going to keep talking to you, okay?  We'll just keep talking until you feel better."

"Talk about what?"  The boy's voice was still tight with tears and near-hysteria.

"Well, well..."  Clark groped for something in his life that might interest or soothe him.  "I'll tell you a story, okay?  I'll tell you an old story from my home."

"A story from Kansas?"

Clark chuckled.  "No, a story from...my home before that.  Is that all right?"

"A Kryptonian story?"  There was a hint of interest in the boy's voice, a little less agony.  "That sounds cool."

"All right.  It begins the way all old fairy tales begin on my home:  'Back when the sun and the moon were still young...an evil king conquered the city of Mor Shah-Val.  But two heroes rose up to fight the evil king.  They were called Nightwing and Flamebird, and they were the greatest heroes ever."  Clark continued telling one of the many variants of the old legend in its non-rhyming form, detailing the magnificent adventures of Nightwing and Flamebird, and listening to Dick's breathing even out and lose its choking edge.  He met Bruce's eyes and nodded reassuringly as he talked, and the other man's shoulders relaxed somewhat, the dark eyes losing some of their tension.

About halfway through the very long and winding story, he paused to take a breath and a new voice broke onto the phone.  "Sir?  I'm pleased to report that Master Richard is asleep."

The voice was English;  it must be that butler of Bruce's, Alfred.  "Oh," said Clark, "I'm glad to hear I managed to bore him to sleep."

There was a dry chuckle.  "The boy is smiling, sir.  He does not look bored, merely...happy."

Clark swallowed, feeling irrationally pleased.  "I'm glad.  Shall I hand you over to Bruce again?"

"If you don't mind, sir.  And sir?"  Alfred added before Clark could give the phone back, "Thank you."

"My pleasure."

Bruce finished up the call as Clark ate a bite of cold and soggy waffle.  He glared at Clark, his worried look gone.  "I suppose you're going to ask for another favor for doing that," he growled.

Clark swallowed waffle.  "Oh, no, I wouldn't--"

"--Don't give me that routine, I know you're going to demand something in return."  Clark shook his head and Bruce made an annoyed sound.  "I _assume_ you're going to act as though I owe you dinner at the Manor again or something when we get back to the States."  His eyes glinted.

"I wouldn't presume to--"

"Dick would like to see you again," Bruce said irritably.  "I'm sure you'll remind me of that as well.  That the least I could do is have his hero over now and then if you're going to protect him from nightmares."

Clark stared at him.  "I'd...love to see Richard again.  And visit you--your house."

An angry snort.  "I figured.  Demands, always demands with you.  Well.  Let's get it over with.  Are you free Sunday night?"

"That's the same day we get home."

Bruce gave him a thunderous look.  "That's what works for me.  Have you got a problem with that?"

"No."

"Good.  I'll have Alfred make dinner.  And you can spend the night."  He glared at Clark's blank expression.  "It would make Dick happy.  So I presume you'll insist on it."

"...All right," Clark said rather faintly.

Bruce threw his napkin down and stood up with the air of a man who has reached the limits of his tolerance.  "I owe you for helping with Dick, Clark, so thank you.  But you are really one pushy bastard."

Then he was gone and Clark was alone with his cold waffles and his total confusion.  He wasn't sure what had just happened there, but slowly through the befuddlement, one thought made its way:

He was going to find out what color the sheets at the Manor were.

Clark Kent carefully cut another piece of syrupy waffle and chewed it thoughtfully for a long time, staring into space.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batman and Bruce Wayne set about to take Shigeru Matsunaga down.

_I have the delusion_  
that you are with me  
as I walk through the fields  
of flowers, under the moon.  
\--Yosano Akiko  
  
< You can't prove that!  You can't prove that! >  Shigeru Matsunaga's voice squeaked as Batman let the line slip a fraction more, abruptly.  He was currently hanging upside-down over the early-morning traffic of Kyoto.  < You can't prove I had anything to do with that! >  
  
< Can't I? >  Batman's voice was terrifyingly even and unruffled.  < Are you so sure?  You and I both know the evidence exists.  I know where it is, and I've already notified the police to search your offices and arrest you. >  He gave the swinging man a slight push.   
  
< I'm not going to admit anything to you! > Matsunaga howled as he arced over the street.  
  
< A shame.  You would have saved us time and hassle.  But I'll get you, Matsunaga, one way or another.  You hired Kyodai Ken to kill the Prime Minister and then kept silent when he killed your own son. The evidence is in that filing cabinet.  The question is, can you beat the police to it? >  
  
The slab-like face contorted.  < My son was a worthless, troublemaking waste of space.  But I had nothing to do with his death. >  
  
The man dangling him above the street might have been carved of ebony for all he reacted.  < You're lying, > he said softly, levelly.  < The police will find out soon enough. >  
  
Matsunaga didn't make a sound as he was dropped unceremoniously twenty stories to the ground, coming to an oddly gentle stop above the pavement.  Batman's hands on the line were extremely careful and steady, as if he didn't trust himself to move abruptly.  As he released the grapple and wound it back in, a voice came behind him.  
  
"You could have told me you were planning something."   
  
"I could have, yes."  Superman moved somewhat closer, his face stern.  He read something in Batman's body language and his expression shifted slightly to concerned, which was annoying.  Superman shouldn't be able to read him that well.  Batman pointed down to where Matsunaga was scurrying along the street.  "You're welcome to come along for the big finale at the headquarters.  Dress casual."  Then he swung away. 

* * *

  
Clark Kent met Bruce Wayne at the front door of Matsunaga headquarters just a few minutes later.  As always, Clark was amazed at how quickly Bruce managed to change--it wasn't like he had superspeed.  But here he was, back in his impeccable suit and shining wingtips.  He shot a sly grin at Clark as they headed up to the CEO's offices.  
  
The secretary might usually have balked at letting an unknown like Clark in, but the offices were in some pandemonium at the moment, with employees whispering and eyeing the doors.  "He's still searching," Clark said quietly to Bruce as the detective strode to Matsunaga's office and rapped on the door, then went in without waiting for permission.  Clark hung back at the doorway, trying to be relatively unobtrusive.   
  
"Mr. Matsunaga!"  Bruce exclaimed as he went in.  Shigeru Matsunaga whirled from the drawer filled with memory sticks, a silver one in his hand.  "I just thought I'd come by and see you this morning, ask how the stock merger was progressing, your opinions on it--"  
  
"Wayne- _san_!"  Matsunaga looked frankly relieved.  " _Yokatta_ , someone I can trust."   
  
Bruce smiled.  
  
Clark remembered all the carefully poured cups of tea and sake, the humble demeanor, the fawning friendliness.  
  
The sound of distant sirens began to reach the office, and Matsunaga swung at Bruce in alarm.  "Take this," he said, thrusting the memory stick into Bruce's hand.  "Destroy it, destroy it without looking at it, all right?  They're compromising photos, me with a girl, nothing illegal, just embarrassing.  Just destroy them, you hear me?"  
  
"I hear you," said Bruce, still smiling.  
  
The elevators opened as the clock chimed nine and police swarmed into the office.  < Matsunaga- _sama_ , I'm afraid we're going to have to take you to the police station for questioning, > one officer said politely.  Bruce slipped the memory stick into his pocket, checking his watch.  He continued to look very delighted about something.  
  
< Yes, yes, of course, > said Matsunaga. < Just a moment, please. > He pulled some paperwork off his desk and handed it to Bruce.  "If you'll sign these, it'll finalize the merger."  
  
Bruce signed the paperwork with a flourish, then shot a look at Clark, still waiting by the doorway.  "Matsunaga Construction's been badly in the red," he explained.  "WayneCorp has agreed to help out by incurring the company's debts in return for a controlling share of stock."  The smile he gave Clark was blindingly pleased with itself.  "The technical term is a 'white knight.'  I'm a white knight."  
  
Matsunaga clapped his white knight on the shoulder.  "I know WayneCorp will take care of Matsunaga Construction."  
  
As Matsunaga began to walk away with the police, Bruce raised his voice.  "Oh yes.  Matsunaga Construction will do well under my guidance.  In fact, my first action is going to be to appoint a new CEO."  
  
Matsunaga stared at him blankly.  "But... _I'm_ the CEO."  
  
"Not for much longer.  Gosh, I couldn't have a company of mine associated with someone tainted.  I'm sure you understand."   
  
"You--you--"  The businessman couldn't seem to process this turn of events.  His face darkened.  "You can never run this company, _gaijin!"_    
  
Bruce looked crestfallen.  "Oh dear, that's a good point.  You're so much smarter than I am."  He brightened.  "I know!  I was planning on meeting a friend of mine here today.  I'll just ask them to be the CEO.  Hey, they're even a Matsunaga!  That works out just swell, doesn't it?"  
  
As if on cue, the elevator doors opened and a slender Japanese woman in a conservative business suit entered the office.  
  
Asaka Matsunaga, widow of Seio Matsunaga.  
  
Bruce grinned at her.  "Asaka!  It's so good to see you!  I really need your help."  As Asaka looked confused, he went on, "See, I just acquired this company, and I'm going to need someone to help me run all the fiddly little day-to-day bits.  Would you be interested?" He turned back to Matsunaga and the gaping employees.  "Asaka is the wife of my very dear childhood friend, Seio.  They had all sorts of cool plans for the company, I know that.  I'm sure Asaka will be able to do a bang-up job.  She's pretty awesome."  Clark noticed that the employees that didn't look uncomprehending looked delighted.   
  
Bruce reached into his suit pocket and did an exaggerated mime of surprise as he pulled out the silver memory stick.  "What the--oh yeah!"  He held the memory stick out to Asaka.  "Your father-in-law gave me this and told me to destroy it.  But I'm hopeless with technology, and since you're the CEO now, I'll just leave it to you."  He looked at the faces Matsunaga and the police officers.  "Uh-oh.  Should I not have said that right now?"  
  
Matsunaga made a choking noise and rushed briefly at Bruce Wayne, but the police restrained him quickly and dragged him off into the elevator.  The doors snapped shut on his bewildered, enraged face.  
  
The police chief bowed to Bruce and reached out to take the memory stick.  "This is evidence?"  
  
"Do you think it could be?  Goodness, I hadn't thought of that!  How exciting."  Bruce beamed and handed over the stick.  
  
"Thank you for turning it over to us."  He gave Bruce a somewhat appraising look and followed after his men.  
  
Asaka was hovering outside the door of Matsunaga's office.  Bruce bowed and gestured inside.  "It's yours now."   
  
She walked in slowly, staring out at the Kyoto skyline beyond the huge windows and running a hand along the ebony desk.  < This monstrosity will have to go, > she muttered to herself.  She looked at Bruce.  "What would you like me to do here?"  
  
Bruce shook his head.  "You do whatever you and your husband would have liked to do.  You don't have to report to me.  I trust you."  He smiled and waved his hands vaguely in the air.  "I'm not good with all those crazy details anyway."  
  
She nodded very slowly.  "I underestimated you.  I should have known that my husband would never care so much for someone hollow."  
  
Bruce said nothing.  After a moment, she sat down in the huge leather chair.  She eyed some documents, then pressed the buzzer on the desk.  A secretary entered, and Asaka said, < Please tell Yamada- _san_ in Research and Development I'd like to talk to him.  And after that I suppose Takeuchi- _san_ in Accounting.  >  The secretary bowed and left the office.  Asaka smiled slightly and addressed Bruce.  "I have a great deal of work to get done.  You may go now.  I'm sure you have some social affair or other very interesting activity you must attend to."  The words were formal but her eyes were warm.  
  
Bruce bowed very deeply;  Clark followed suit.   
  
In the elevator, Bruce allowed the lupine edge of his smile to glint at Clark.  "Does that meet your exacting standards for a fair revenge?"  
  
Clark restrained himself from kissing that sharp and dangerous smile with a mighty effort.  "That seemed reasonable.  Was it satisfying?"  
  
The smile turned somewhat wistful.  "As satisfying as anything is that doesn't bring my friend back."  
  
They walked through the lobby and out into the morning streets of Kyoto.  The sun hit Clark at the same time as a thought that had never consciously occurred to him before, and without thinking he blurted suddenly, "Bruce, you and Seio--were you just friends?"  
  
No answer from Bruce.  Clark looked over to see the other man squinting up into the spring sun.  "Were you?" he repeated.   
  
Bruce swung away and started down the street away from Clark.  Clark hurried after and touched him on the shoulder.  "Bruce--"  
  
Bruce turned on him, his azure eyes cold.  "It's none of your damn _business_ , Clark!"  The look of blank surprise on Clark's face seemed to stoke his rage.  "Don't you _dare_ to judge me based on who I fuck or who I--who I could love.  I don't care what kind of avatar of traditional American values you set yourself up to be, you don't have that _right._   So keep your priggish denunciations to yourself."  The glare he gave Clark wavered into misery around the edges.  "I suppose you're going to tell me I shouldn't have custody of the boy now."  His voice was bleak.  
  
Horror had Clark by the throat;  he couldn't seem to articulate a single thought.  "No, no, no," he managed to say.  "No."  Bruce's stance was as tense as if expecting a blow and Clark couldn't bear it.  "Love is love," he said.  "I've always believed that.  I just...wanted to know.  I'm sorry, I know it's none of my business at all.  I'm sorry," he repeated lamely.  
  
Bruce looked away, hands balled at his side.  "We were...mostly just friends," he said finally.  "I never really let it become more than that."  
  
"He loved you."  
  
A small sigh.  "So he said, when I had to leave.  I..." He paused and looked down.  "I was not in a place where such things were thinkable.  I had to go.  How I felt made no difference."  
  
Almost against his will, Clark thought, _And are you in a place where such things are thinkable now?_   He knew that Bruce would never be interested in a big blue Boy Scout from Kansas, but...knowing he _could_ be interested...it made a difference, somehow.  "I'm sorry," he said again.  
  
Bruce looked at him them, a small, wry smile on his lips that made Clark feel very odd indeed.  "I probably should be apologizing to you.  I didn't have any real reason to think you'd be that closed-minded.  I just kind of assumed."  
  
Clark frowned.  "Well, don't.  You know, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me."  
  
Bruce snorted ferociously.  "That's just the kind of witty quip that will put you in good stead as the leader of _la Liga de la Justica_."  
  
"Justice League," Clark corrected absent-mindedly.  "Although it sounds good in Spanish too."  His brain caught up with Bruce's words.  "Wait, leader?  I don't think so.  I was thinking more a rotating chairship."  
  
Bruce gave him a level look.  "You can call it whatever you want, and you can even rotate who sits in the chair."  He turned away and started walking down the street;  his voice came back over his shoulder to Clark.  "But signing checks and calling meetings to order is not the same thing as being a leader."   
  
Clark hurried after Bruce.  It was a bright spring morning and he found himself smiling as he followed his friend.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is annoyed at the world in general and Clark in particular. Clark and Bruce visit Bruce's least favorite place in Kyoto, and reflections lead to revelations.

_Wakened by the scent  
of flowering plum...  
The darkness  
of the spring night  
fills me with longing.  
\--Izumi Shikibu  
_  
Bruce Wayne sat and listened to the speaker drone on about some very important issue.  He remembered Shigeru Matsunaga's face from earlier this morning, locked in impotent rage, and felt a glow of satisfaction.  He remembered Asaka Matsunaga's face as she stood in the office that should have been her husband's, an even better image.  He should be feeling proud of a good day's work done even before breakfast.  
  
Instead, Bruce Wayne was feeling a familiar sense of annoyance.  He couldn't seem to shake it.  He had left Matsunaga Construction and hurried to breakfast with Adytha Harpswell, only to discover she was still on her damned Superman fangirl spree.  An entire meal having to listen about the paragon of perfection, the zenith of all sentient life, and epitome of grace and glory--not that Adytha's vocabulary and eloquence were that advanced.  It was instead mostly squealings about how sexy blue tights were and how very hot that cute little curl was.  And Bruce had to sit there and remember that the damn paragon had somehow gotten invited to an entire evening at the Manor.  
  
What had he been thinking?  Listening to Adytha swoon, Bruce was heartily sick of the man.  He managed to excuse himself by saying he had to call Dick and check in with him, and breathed a sigh of relief as he dialed the number out in the lobby.  
  
"You helped arrest the guy who hired that assassin?" Dick asked breathlessly.  "Cool!  Did Superman help?"  
  
Bruce ground his teeth and decided not to mention Clark would be visiting the Manor when they returned.  He didn't feel up to dealing with Dick's reaction right now.  
  
As he was hanging up, he heard a familiar irritatingly cheerful voice behind him.  _Of course._   He turned to glare at Clark, who stopped dead in mid-wave, his eyebrows rising in surprise.  "What do _you_ want?" Bruce snapped.  
  
"I--" Clark continued to look nonplussed, which annoyed Bruce further.  As if they were _friends,_ as if Clark had the right to expect Bruce to be _cordial_ to him whenever he decided to show up and bother him.  "I was wondering if I could convince you to go sightseeing with me this afternoon.  Play hooky from the conference.  I mean, it's our last day here, and...well, I thought you might want to celebrate a little."  
  
"What would you like to see?"  Bruce made an effort to be polite.  
  
"I haven't been to Kinkaku-ji yet, I hear it's gorgeous."  
  
"Ah, the Golden Pavilion, of course.  Every tourist has to go see it."  Bruce could hear the condescension in his voice, and saw Clark frown in reaction.  He took a deep breath.  There was no reason to be so annoyed.  It wasn't Clark's fault.  Not exactly.  "How about this, Clark:  we'll go to Kinkaku-ji for you if you'll go with me to my favorite place in Kyoto after.  I'll even call up Chiaki, tell her she can take the rest of the afternoon off, so we can...relax a little."  
  
Clark's face lit up as if Bruce had thrown an arm around his shoulders.  The Kryptonian was so ridiculously easy to please.  "That sounds great!"  
  
Well, at least he hadn't said it sounded "swell."  Or "peachy-keen."

* * *

  
Bruce tried not to stalk along the path leading to the Golden Pavilion.  Batman stalked.  Brucie Wayne didn't stalk.    
  
He had never really liked Kinkaku-ji, never really seen the appeal, for some reason.  The path was crammed with schoolchildren in sailor suits on school trips, older women in kimono shuffling along.  Clark walked along beside him, taking in the sights.  
  
They reached the traditional viewing point for the Golden Pavilion.  In front of them stretched a small pond, and in the middle of the water was a small, exquisite structure.  Dark wood and whitewashed plaster at the bottom gave way to a second and third story covered with gold leaf, blazing bright in the spring sun.  The delicately curving roof was topped with a golden statue of a bird about to take flight.  The pavilion was reflected in the rippling water below it, distorted and broken.  
  
It was static and rather dull, in Bruce's opinion.  But it was one of the most-photographed sites in Kyoto, so here they were.  God forbid Clark miss out on something shiny that everyone liked.  
  
They stood side-by-side, looking at it, for some time.  "If the water were still," Clark said thoughtfully, "The reflection would be breathtaking."  
  
"The ripples never really stop," Bruce said.  "The footsteps of all the tourists are enough to keep it in constant motion."  
  
"That's a pity.  A perfect mirror image would be...quite a sight."  
  
Bruce made a noncommittal noise.  
  
"When was it built?" Clark asked.  
  
 _Do I look like your freaking tour guide?_   Bruce felt that irrational frustration corkscrew through him again, stronger than ever.  He bit down on it hard and answered Clark, since after all, he did know the answer.  "This is actually a replica.  The original was built in 1393, but was destroyed about sixty years ago."  
  
"Only a replica?"  Clark sounded sad.  "Was it destroyed during the war?"  
  
Bruce shook his head, staring at the shining pavilion, floating like a vision, out of reach on the water.  "Kyoto was mostly untouched during the war.  It was burned down in 1955 by one of its monks."  
  
"What?"  Clark swung to stare at Bruce.  "Really?"  
  
"Oh yes, it was turned into a novel by Yukio Mishima.  The monk claimed he couldn't bear knowing that the Temple existed in the same world as he did, that its perfection drove him to destroy it by ruthlessly revealing to him his own imperfection."  
  
Clark made a small, confused noise.  "He hated it so much?"  
  
Irritation edged close to an emotion like anger.  How the hell could Clark be so dense sometimes?  "Don't be _ridiculous_ , Clark.  The monk couldn't bear that the Pavilion existed in such splendor totally independent of him, that it didn't need him at all, it was flawless as itself.  He had to strike at it somehow, had to force it to respond to him, even if that meant destroying it."  This seemed terribly obvious to Bruce.  "He didn't hate it."  _Damn it, Clark, why must you be so obtuse?_   "He loved it."  
  
For just a moment, it was as if the rippling pond beneath the pavilion had gone as smooth as glass, as if the shining building had for one timeless instant stood balanced in perfection above and below.  Nothing dramatic, nothing overwhelming, just a realization of simple clarity.  _  
  
So that's what it is._    
 _  
I see.  
  
_ Bruce blinked.  Clark was speaking as if only a moment had passed, as if everything hadn't changed entirely and irrevocably.  "But things can never need people.  And people aren't things.  No sentient being is...untouchable."  He sounded rather wistful.  
  
Bruce swung into motion away from Clark, away from the perfect pavilion, away from their reflections in the water, heading further down the path.  "Yes, yes, no man is an island," he said lightly.  "People need people, and people who need people are..." He broke into melodramatic song, flinging out an arm, "...the _luckiest_ people in the world!"  A flock of nearby schoolgirls broke into giggles and Clark's eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hairline.  Bruce bared his teeth at the other man, daring him to laugh at the sight of Batman singing Barbra Streisand.  "Spare me the platitudes, Clark, charming though they may be."  Bruce paused.  Had he just implied somehow that Clark was _charming?_   He turned away quickly again from the Kryptonian and kept walking.    
  
He was going to have to watch himself more carefully from now on.  
  


* * *

  
"My turn," Bruce had said after they left the Golden Pavilion.  "We've seen your stupid perfect pavilion, so now we go to my choice."  The words had been cutting, but the tone had been otherwise:  cheerful, almost carefree.  Bruce had been so gloomy and irritable when Clark had run into him earlier;  Clark had written it off as a natural let-down from completing what he had come to Japan to do, but the mood had been so savagely bitter he felt unsure.  However, since viewing the Golden Pavilion, Bruce's demeanor had shifted mercurially to fiercely, almost fatalistically happy, the irritability dissipated entirely.    
  
Clark had seen this sometimes in the people Superman rescued, the almost giddy calm that descends upon those who have decided they're doomed.  
  
What did Bruce feel he was doomed to?   
  
Clark felt a pang of worry at the way he had forced Bruce's hand on the Justice League.  Batman was not exactly a man to be cajoled or bartered with on these things.  Clark should have waited, should have let him join on his own terms.    
  
Well, it was too late to worry about these things now.  
  
Clark tried to tuck his thoughts away and was partially successful.  
  
The taxi stopped in front of a large compound, its low beige walls topped with brown tile.  They passed through heavy wooden gates into what looked almost like a small city.  Pathways laid with massive granite stones wound between small buildings ringed with low, drab walls.  Gnarled pine trees leaned over the walls and dark-tiles roofs lifted above them.  A few sightseers walked along the path, but it was largely hushed and empty.  "Daitokuji," Bruce said.  "It's really many little temples collected into this one compound.  I came here whenever I could when I was in Japan.  Come here, I'll show you."  He led Clark along the stone paths, past gates marked with Buddhist symbols, until they passed through a gate into a small mossy garden.  The stone path ran up to an entranceway.  Bruce pulled off his shoes and shelved them, then paid for two admissions from a rather bored-looking monk.  
  
The temple itself was quiet;  Clark and Bruce were the only people there.  The dark wood floor in the entrance hall was polished to a gleaming sheen and Clark's socks slipped along it as he padded after Bruce.  The hall widened out into the temple proper, a small building with wooden porches on all sides, overlooking dry stone gardens of raked white pebbles.  Clark reached out for one of the informational pamphlets but Bruce held them away.  "Uh-uh, I want you to see this without knowing about it."  
  
The dark wood veranda overlooked an austere rock garden with white pebbles raked into diagonal stripes across its expanse.  Small black rocks studded the white yard, seemingly at random.  Behind the garden a low dun wall set off the white rocks.  Bruce sank down on the wooden planks into a cross-legged position and stared out at the garden.  Clark settled next to him.  The sun-touched wood was warm under his hands.  The garden hovered, inscrutable, in front of them.  Clark sneaked a look at Bruce's face after a while;  it was rapt, the dark blue eyes lost in thought, lips parted just a bit.    
  
Bruce turned from the garden to Clark.  "What is it?"  It took Clark a moment to realize he was referring to the garden, and he transferred his gaze hastily to the glowing white.   
  
"I have no idea, Bruce.  Put me out of misery and let me in on the secret, would you?"  
  
Bruce made a small snorting sound that was almost a laugh.  "The founder of this particular temple was a powerful daimyo.  Later in life, he converted to Christianity.  He then spent the rest of his life hunting down and killing the monks of this temple for heresy."  Bruce's mouth twitched at the expression on Clark's face.  "Humans.  We're a charming lot, aren't we?"    
  
Clark said nothing, still staring at the garden, and Bruce continued, "After he died, the remaining monks returned here, rebuilt the temple, and redesigned the gardens."  He shifted and stood up, Clark following his lead.  "The reason you can't see it is we're at the wrong angle."  He walked slowly down the length of the veranda to the far end, then turned to look across the garden lengthwise.  "The pattern created by the black rocks."  He put his left hand on Clark's shoulder and traced lines in the air with his right across the garden:  a short horizontal, a longer vertical.  
  
"It's a cross," said Clark slowly.  "The rocks trace out a cross."  Now that Bruce had pointed it out, it was obvious.  The diagonally-raked pebbles were like rays of light descending from the arm of the cross.  
  
"It's in memory and honor of their founder and his religion," Bruce said softly.  His smile at Clark's expression was wry.  "The wisdom and compassion of both the Buddha and the Christ are infinite, after all."  The smile slid away as he looked out over the stones again.  "This garden...it made me so _angry_ back then.  I would come here and sit and seethe.  I wanted to throw things at it, rake my feet across the pebbles.  How dare they forgive?  How _dare_ they let go?"    
  
He seemed to realize his hand was still on Clark's shoulder and he stepped away, dropping it to his side.  "I came here again last night.  Before seeking out Matsunaga."  Clark imagined that dark and ominous shape crouched on the low wall, staring down at the stones, the black cape trailing down.  "I'm still not sure I understand it."  Bruce's voice was thoughtful.  "But I don't hate it anymore."  
  
"Well," said Clark lightly, "That's progress of a sort."    
  
Bruce turned to give him an unfathomable look from cool cobalt eyes, level and unsettling.  "I suppose," he said.  He leaned his back against a wooden support and slid down to a sitting position again.  Clark dropped down next to him.  The temple was almost silent, the compound around them muffling the noises of the city beyond.  A bird trilled somewhere beyond the garden walls.  Bruce stared out at the garden.  Clark did too, but his mind was on the man beside him.  It would be nice, he thought lazily, to lie down on the sun-warmed wood and put his head in Bruce's lap, feel Bruce's sure hands running through his hair.  
  
"I suppose," Bruce said again, very softly.

* * *

  
"It's not particularly appropriate to be having drinks with a client, Mr. Wayne," Chiaki Yamaoka said gravely.  
  
"Nonsense," scoffed Bruce, pouring her a beer and ignoring her horrified look at his breach of decorum in serving her.  "After you got me through the closing ceremonies tonight I ceased to be your client, right?  Besides, I brought along Clark here to chaperon so it wouldn't look too shady."  He nodded at the reporter, who sipped at his beer and looked uncomfortable.  Bruce produced an envelope and handed it with both hands to the interpreter.  "This is a small bonus for all your troubles, Ms. Yamaoka."  She hesitated, but took it and slipped it in her handbag unopened.  Clark suspected she was going to be surprised at just how much was in that envelope.  
  
"It was no trouble at all, Mr. Wayne."  
  
"Well," Bruce said cheerfully, "I suppose you got an extra bonus in the chance to get to know Clark.  Here's to you both."  He raised his glass slightly.  
  
Chiaki smiled just a touch sadly.  "I'm very happy to have met Clark as well.  But I'm afraid it will never work out between us, Clark."  Her smile at the confused reporter might have been just slightly sly.  "Thank you for opening your heart to me.  I do hope that you can find the love you yearn for in someone more suited for you."  
  
Both Clark and Bruce blinked.  "Oh," said Bruce.  "So you two aren't...I mean, you're not..."  Chiaki shook her head solemnly.  "Oh," said Bruce again, and poured himself another glass of beer.  He took a long, slow drink, then put the glass down.  "Well, anyway, the real reason I wanted to talk to you tonight was--"  He looked down at his glass.  "--WayneCorp has recently acquired a Japanese company headquartered here in Kyoto, and the new CEO is, although well-qualified, somewhat inexperienced.  She will need a good interpreter to help negotiate with the Western companies she will be working with from now."  He looked up at Chiaki.  "Would you be willing to take on a full-time job with WayneCorp, working for Matsunaga Construction?" He jotted down something on a piece of paper, folded it, and slid it across the table to her.  "Your starting salary would probably be around here, if you're interested.  It's a rather meagre sum, but perhaps..."   
  
He let the sentence hang in the air unfinished as Chiaki opened the slip of paper.  Her face remained impassive, but her eyebrows twitched upward.  The interpreter bowed her head politely, her hands folded in her lap.  "You do me a great honor," she murmured.  Then she looked up with a wide and unladylike grin.  "I'd love to!"  
  
"Good.  Well.  That's settled, then," Bruce said, looking pleased and slightly embarrassed.  
  
The three of them talked for a while about the Golden Pavilion and Daitokuji, about Asaka Matsunaga, about the conference.  Chiaki finally excused herself with a final bow to Bruce and a fleeting hug to a very surprised Clark.  "Good luck," she whispered hastily in his ear, then left with a final wave.  
  
"She's an interesting woman," Bruce observed as she disappeared through the door.  "Too bad it didn't seem to work out for you."  
  
"She...I don't think she was that interested in me," Clark said musingly.  
  
Bruce frowned rather obstinately.  "That's ridiculous."  He seemed rather offended at the idea somehow.  "What are all these women, _blind?"_ he muttered irritably into his beer.  
  
Clark grinned.  "Was that a _compliment_ , Bruce?"  
  
Bruce made a growling noise.  "Don't be stupid.  I'm just saying I still can't believe a pair of glasses and a change in hairstyle is enough to turn you from 'oh my God he's dreamy' to 'meh, I've seen better.''  
  
Clark's grin turned just a touch wry.  "Well, believe it."  He nibbled on a pod of _edamame_ , the salty green beans served along with the beer.  "That's okay, I'm willing to wait for someone who likes me and not just the cape."  He finished up his beer.  "Well, I'd better get some sleep, long flight tomorrow."  
  
"You're not planning on flying back _commercial?"_ Bruce shook his head emphatically.  "I came here via private jet this time--official company business, after all--and I'll be returning the same way.  You'll fly with me, of course.  Waste of your time and energy otherwise, since you can't take--you know--more _direct_ routes and skip customs and immigration altogether."  
  
"Well...thank you," Clark said hesitantly, but Bruce just waved a dismissive hand.  
  
"I know you, if I don't make sure you come back to Gotham with me you'll skip out on dinner and break the boy's heart."  Bruce's tone was light, almost teasing, and Clark decided not to take too seriously the implication that he might ever do something to hurt Dick.  
  
"I wouldn't skip out," he said carefully, hoping his ambivalence didn't show.  Of course he wanted to sit and have dinner with Bruce and Dick again, chat and laugh as though they were...friends.  Of course he wanted to spend the evening there, to see more of Bruce's life.  Of course he wanted to spend the night under the same roof as the other man, to sleep in a bed that perhaps Bruce had slept in once, to know that Bruce was asleep just down the hall, so close, so close...he tamped down on the brush of lust ruthlessly.  Of course he wanted all that.  That was just the problem.  "I'd never go back on my obligations."  
  
"Your obligations," Bruce repeated.  "Of course not."  He put his glass down with a _clunk_.  "You're a man of your word, after all."  
   
Something in the tilt of Bruce's head, the angle of his winged eyebrows, made Clark feel he had given the wrong answer somehow, but the opacity of those sapphire eyes made it impossible to tell in what way.  The stress on "obligations" might be a reference to the JLA situation again.  Or...had Bruce wanted Clark to find some excuse to turn him down, relieve himself from entertaining the hick farmboy?  Was there someone else he was anxious to meet again in Gotham and Clark was going to be in the way?  For the first time, Clark felt a sick twist of jealousy in his gut.  That was _ridiculous_ , he told himself sternly.  You could find someone sexually attractive without wanting to be in a relationship with them.  Bruce was merely a good-looking man who had made Clark aware that he wasn't as straight as he had thought.  The fact that Clark wanted to kiss the man across the table from him, wanted to pull him close enough to feel the heat of his body though his clothes, wanted to reach across the table and take his hand, put the wrist to his lips and feel the glorious pulse beneath them, maybe take one of those strong, capable fingers in his mouth and suck on it, suck...  
  
Clark could no longer remember exactly where that sentence had been going in his head.  "I've been looking forward to seeing the Manor again.  I really have," he said, not letting himself think about whether or not that was what Bruce wanted him to say, hoping his voice didn't sound too husky.  
  
A shift in the wide shoulders across the table:  relief or discouragement, Clark had no idea.  It felt like the more he wanted Bruce the less able he was to read him.  Stupid, blind Kryptonian, dazzled with lust, unable to concentrate...  
  
Bruce stood up and dropped money on the table.  "I'll meet you in front of my hotel at ten o'clock to go to the airstrip, then."  He paused a moment.  "Maybe...when you're at the Manor, I could show you where I...work?"  
  
Clark blinked.  The chance to see the cave where Bruce spent so much of his time... "I'd like that, if you don't mind.  I'd like to know what it looks like."  
  
Bruce leaned closer to Clark, pitching his voice low under the hum of the bar.  "You've got x-ray vision, Clark.  You could always just _look."_  
  
"It's not the same as being invited," Clark replied.  
  
A long, level look.  "No, I guess it's not.  Well."  He seemed to collect his thoughts.  "Just promise you won't break anything," he said, wagging a finger at Clark and laughing at the reporter's disgusted look.  "I'll see you in the morning," he said, and headed for the door.  
  
Clark walked back toward his hotel.  A few stray cherry-blossom petals wafted past him as he walked along.  Another long night of trying not to dream about Bruce, not to fantasize about all the things he wanted to do, to have done to him...  
  
It would make it too real.  It would be like...admitting something.  He wasn't sure what.    
  
No, this infatuation would fade, like the cherry blossoms.  He'd process the fact that he could be attracted to men and move on to find a more appropriate romantic interest.  Someone less prickly and impossible.  Someone interested in him in return.  He just had to wait it out and be strong, not give in and let his body's impulses take up residence in his brain.  
  
He was the Man of Steel.  
  
He could do that.  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark comes to Wayne Manor to eat dinner, see the Batcave, chat with Dick about costume design, and borrow Bruce's pajamas.

_My longing for you--  
too strong to keep within bounds.  
At least no one can blame me  
when I go to you at night  
along the road of dreams.  
\--Ono no Komachi  
_  
The air pressure shifted again as the WayneCorp private jet started its descent into Gotham.  Bruce Wayne was looking out the window.  Watching his satisfied smirk, Clark Kent couldn't help but smile as well.  "Good to be home?"  
  
Bruce sighed, a sigh so full of longing for his city that Clark felt his heart turn over.  "Oh, yes."  
  
The flight had been an uneventful one.  Clark had read a stack of newspapers and Bruce had slept.  Or, to be more accurate, Clark had used his x-ray vision to peek through the newspaper in front of his face and watch Bruce sleeping.  When he was asleep, Bruce's face relaxed somewhat, making him look much younger than he was.  Long eyelashes shadowed his cheeks, and his mouth was slightly lax.  Clark spent an hour watching the faintest flutter of those eyelashes, another hour memorizing the exact curve of the lips.  Then he closed his eyes and focused on the heartbeat, the breathing of the man across from him, soothing and steady.  He shouldn't indulge this infatuation, he knew he shouldn't.  Listening to the blood moving through Bruce's body, the air in his mouth, in his chest, all the subtle motions of life.  Infatuation.  
  
The flight seemed surprisingly quick.  
  
After the landing, passport-checking, and form-submitting, the two made their way to the waiting car.  Dick was leaning against the limousine, reading a book.  His eyes lit up at the sight of them.  "Bruce!  You didn't tell me Clark was coming!"  He dropped the book onto the hood of the car and tossed himself into Bruce's arms with a mix of acrobat's grace and boy's clumsiness.  Clark noticed that Bruce's returning hug wasn't quite as stiff and awkward as it had been the last time Dick met them at the airport.  Dick stepped away from Bruce and grinned shyly at Clark, who stepped forward to wrap the boy up in a hug as well.  
  
"I wanted to surprise you," Bruce said easily to Dick as they climbed into the car.    
  
"Did you know about this, Alfred?" demanded Dick.    
  
The driver of the car just chuckled as he pulled away from the airport.  "Nice to see you again, sir," he said to Clark, moving deftly into traffic.  
  
"I'm...happy to be here," said Clark, feeling suddenly rather shy.  He had missed the relaxed interactions in Gotham more than he had let himself realize, apparently.  He listened to Dick chatter about the week Bruce had missed, watched Bruce nodding and prompting him.  It was more than a polite phrase, he realized:  he _was_ happy to be here.    
  
He tried not to think about it too much.

* * *

  
Bruce sipped the last of his coffee as Dick finished scraping the last bits of ice cream from his bowl.  Clark was tempted to join Dick in his thoroughness, but refrained.  "Well, Dick," said Bruce, "Clark has said he'd like to see the cave."  
  
Dick almost dropped his spoon.  "Really?"  His grin was blinding.  "Clark, it's the most awesome place!  Wait until you see the computer, and there are all these bats flying around all the time...it's the coolest place in the world."  Then he did drop the spoon with a clatter into the bowl as a thought occurred to him.  "And I can show you my costume designs!  I've got them all down there."  He jumped to his feet and grabbed Clark's hand, tugging.  "Let's go now!"  
  
Clark looked at Bruce for approval, and when the other man nodded he let himself be led to the den, with the ancient grandfather clock he had seen there last visit.  Dick fiddled with the clock a bit, and it swung open onto a dark stairway winding down.  "Told you it was cool," he said at Clark's appreciative whistle.  
  
"It's like a Hardy Boys book," Clark said, ignoring the Bruce's snicker behind him.  
  
The stair wound down, broadening and opening up at last into a surprisingly vast cave.  Among the cavernous roof Clark could hear the chittering and fluttering of numberless bats.  
  
"Clark, Clark, check this out!" Dick called, running to a set of gymnastics equipment:  pommel horse, high bar, and rings.  He pulled himself up quickly on the rings into an Iron Cross position, holding it for a while before letting go, wincing a little.    
  
"Impressive," said Clark sincerely.    
  
"I can't hold it anywhere near as long as Bruce can," Dick said, stretching his shoulders carefully.  "He says it's natural I can't, I don't have the upper body strength yet.  But I will someday!"  
  
The image Dick's words called up hit Clark hard enough to feel like a blow: Bruce in a white tank top, working out on the pommel horse or the high bar, that lithe body graceful, gleaming with sweat...no heavy body armor to distract or hinder...  
  
He realized Bruce was talking to him and snapped his attention to where the other man was gesturing.  A bank of computers, screens flickering, a large womb-like chair in front of them.  Dick pounced onto the chair as Bruce explained the capabilities of the system, sending it whipping around in dizzy circles, his voice Dopplering as he spun.  "It's really, really--fast but--Bruce won't--let me play--computer games--on it."  
  
"It's not a toy, Dick," Bruce said gravely, but made no move to stop the boy from spinning in his chair.  
  
Dick brought the chair to an abrupt halt, grinning.  "You sure?" he said cheekily, then scampered over to a cabinet, banging drawers.  
  
"I hope you can design a system like this for the League, Bruce," Clark said.  
  
"Mmm.  I suppose now that I've officially been roped into it I can maybe start to think about--"  
  
Dick's voice interrupted Bruce.  "--Hey!  He's going to join that Justice League?" he asked Clark, his eyes shining.  
  
"I seem to have convinced him of the necessity," Clark said dryly.  
  
 _"Awesome."_   Dick whisked a handful of rolls of blueprints from the cabinets.  "He's been working on these for _ages!_   Wait until you see them!"  
  
Bruce made an alarmed noise as Dick unrolled the blueprints:  dozens of possible schemata for a space station, diagrams of potential security systems, an elaborate circuitry design for a computer system.    
  
"You can _maybe start to think about it_ , Bruce?" said Clark.  
  
"Well," said Bruce.  He coughed into his hand briefly.  "They didn't take _that_ long to make, really."  
  
Clark shuffled through the piles of painstakingly meticulous blueprints.  "I like this one," he said, lifting one of the station designs up.  
  
Bruce snorted.  "That one?  That's crap, that's the first one I made.  No, no, this is the one," he announced, snatching a blueprint up unerringly.  "Look at this."  He held it up for Clark to admire.  "This one's elegant, pragmatic--look at the placement of the observation deck.  And it's outfitted for much better fuel economy."  
  
"It's probably a lot more expensive that the other one."  
  
Dark blue eyes nearly snapped sparks.  "Now is not the time to get _chintzy_ , Clark.  The Justice League is not going to operate out of some cut-rate ramshackle satellite.  What kind of symbol of Justice cuts corners?  No," he said, slapping the blueprint down on the table with finality, "I am _not_ going to let you do a half-assed job on this."  
  
Fortunately, Clark was saved from having to respond by Dick spilling a pile of paper on the table next to the schemata.  Clark blinked at an assortment of costumes in colored crayon.  "They're very... _bright,_ Richard," he said carefully.  Beside him Bruce rolled his eyes very slightly.  
  
"They're all kind of based on my circus costume," Dick explained, pulling out a costume of combined gold, magenta, orange and...were those _feathers?_   "I want to be Flamebird!  From your story!"  
  
"That's...wonderful!" said Clark cheerfully.  "But you know, 'Flamebird' doesn't really go with 'Bat,' when you think about it.  Bats are real and Flamebirds are mythical."  
  
"That's true," Dick mused.  "But I want to be something bright and happy.  And Mom always called me her little Dickie bird."  His eyes were sad.  
  
"There are lots of cheerful real birds out there too.  And some of these other costumes look great.  You probably don't need the real feathers, though," Clark suggested.  
  
Dick eyed one of the pictures critically.  "You might be right.  Sequins might be better."  
  
Bruce made a small sound of despair, too low for the boy to catch, but Clark shot him a laughing look.  Bruce would probably keep Dick off the streets as long as possible merely to keep from having to make him the costume.  
  


* * *

  
" _Those_ are what you wear to sleep in?" Bruce said indignantly as Clark emerged from the upstairs bathroom, toothbrush in hand.  
  
Clark looked down at his ragged and worn gray sweatsuit.  "What's wrong with my sleepwear, Bruce?"  
  
Bruce tsked at him.  "You're hopeless, Clark.  There's no reason to maintain that schlub facade even while you sleep."  
  
"It's not entirely a facade," Clark muttered sullenly, but Bruce was not to be deterred.  
  
"There is absolutely no reason not to look your best, even in repose."  
  
"You sound like a GQ article," Clark said, sounding amused.  "These are _comfortable."_  
  
Bruce crossed his arms and glowered.  Then he reached out and dragged Clark across the hall and into his room.  "Whoa," said Clark a bit nervously, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.  Bruce rummaged through a dresser drawer and came up with a pair of midnight-blue silk pajamas.  He tossed them at Clark, who caught them by reflex.  Clark stared at him, then down at the handful of sapphire-colored silk.  Then back at him.  
  
Bruce pointed to an ornate changing screen in the corner of the room.  "Put them on."  Clark shrugged, bewildered, and disappeared behind the screen.  
  
The rustling of cotton and silk behind the screen caught at Bruce.  He didn't even exactly know why he was being so perverse about Clark's sleeping fashion choices.  
  
Well, yes he did.  He wanted to see Clark in something flattering.  Something Bruce had picked out for him.  
  
Something that belonged to Bruce.  
  
Clark's voice from behind the screen:  "It's a little tight in the chest, Bruce."  
  
"Well, leave it unbuttoned," Bruce said lightly.  He dropped into the armchair in the opposite corner and waited until Clark emerged wearing the dark blue pajamas.  "Nice," said Bruce, his voice careless.  "That's a bit more like it."  He looked away, out the window.  It wasn't hard to take his eyes away from Clark at all, because he could see it it wherever he looked now:  The silk clinging to Clark's legs like water, the shirt open to reveal corded muscle, taut skin.  He almost needed to rub at his eyes now before he could manage to see anything else.  
  
"Thanks for the makeover," Clark said, sounding rather uncomfortable.  Of course, he had just found out Bruce was attracted to men yesterday;  he was probably worried that Bruce was coming on to him.  
  
Admittedly, Bruce wished he could.  Of course, that made it all the more imperative he not show it.  They had to work together, after all, and if Superman was wondering if Batman was checking out his ass it might...strain their working relationship.  Their friendship.  
  
Bruce realized with a sudden pang that his friendship with Clark had somehow, somewhere, become too important to risk with a little flirtatious banter.  _Stupid Bat, let your guard down and end up immediately falling for your best friend.  Your straight best friend._   He let that annoyance trickle into his voice just enough to keep it cool and somewhat distant as he stood up.  "Well, I'm going downstairs to get a little work done before bed.  I don't really want Batman to be seen on the streets the same night Bruce gets back in town, but that doesn't mean I can't get a lot done."  
  
Clark shifted awkwardly, running a fold of the dangling pajama top between his fingers.  "Okay.  I guess I'll catch a little sleep.  Maybe I'll patrol Metropolis for a bit in the early morning."  
  
"Just make sure you're back for breakfast at seven, or both Alfred and Dick will have my head for letting you go."  
  
Clark chuckled at the doorway.  "I don't intend to miss Alfred's breakfast."  He paused.  "Good night, Bruce."  
  
"Night, Clark."  Once the Kryptonian was gone, Bruce put on his own pajamas and a warm robe and headed down to the computer banks.  He pored over the police reports for the last few days, ran a few simulations.    
  
Then he remembered the Kryptonian cloth tucked into his uniform's belt.  
  
He pulled out the tiny square and unfolded it, marveling at how the fabric collapsed into something so small.  It wasn't even like it was thin:  no, it had a deep, velvety texture and was heavy, luxurious.    
  
He ran a scanner across it quickly and sat down in the womb chair to watch and sort the results, the cape still in his hands, warm and comforting.  The analyses--tensile strength, chemical composition, light refraction--scrolled in front of his eyes.  Cloth on his palms.  It felt slightly different on his palms than on the back of his hands.  Velvet and brocade, silk and something more slippery than silk, all at once.  Warm.  Crimson warmth.  
  
He realized abruptly that he'd been staring at the same report for about ten minutes, just running the cape through his hands almost mindlessly.  Did it have a scent, he wondered abruptly?  He bundled a handful up and put it to his face.  Checking for aromatic qualities, he thought a bit muzzily.  An important part of cloth analysis.  
  
It was warm on his cheek, soft and yielding.  A faint scent of something completely uncategorizable, somewhere between flowers and spices.  Was that the scent of the cloth, or of Clark?  He buried his face in crimson slickness and inhaled deeply, feeling velvet warmth on his lips.  The image of Clark in midnight blue silk rose up again in his mind's eye.  Bruce felt his breath move the scarlet cloth in front of his face.  
  
He pulled it down and tried to focus.  This level of distraction was...unexpected.  He was willing to accept that he...cared for Clark, but the demands of dealing with Matsunaga, with Chiaki and the conference, with his memories of Seio, had kept his body from catching up to his heart.  
  
It seemed to have caught up now.  Bruce grimaced to find that he was still stroking the cape, the sharp-rich texture of it beneath his hands like flame.  It felt warm to his palms, cooler and smoother to the back of his hands.  He wondered if the texture would feel different to other parts of his body.  
  
He shivered.  
  
Bruce stood up, annoyed, tossed the cape across the chair, and went to grab some tools to use on it.  Unlikely that anything could possibly damage its pristine perfection, but it was important to try.  He turned back and stood for a long time in front of the womb chair.  The cape was draped across the black leather of the chair sinuously, light glowing and glinting off it in different places, shadows nestled into its folds.  
  
Midnight blue silk up against Clark's body.   Perfect skin wrapped in Bruce's garments.  The voluptuous echo of alien cloth on the skin of his hands, tingling and warm.  
  
Bruce swallowed.  
  
He undid the sash of his robe.  
  


* * *

  
The Manor sheets turned out to be a disappointing navy-blue cotton.  At least the guest room sheets were.  Perhaps the main bedroom's sheets were purple satin?  Or...Clark had heard of leather sheets, and could rather imagine Bruce's perverse sense of humor prompting him to deck his bed out in his signature material.  He resisted the temptation to check with x-ray vision.  That would be rude.  
  
Or perhaps he just didn't want to be disappointed again.  
  
Clark slid between the long-awaited sheets with a sigh.  They were, of course, extremely _high-quality_ cotton sheets, whisper-soft to the touch.  The silk pajamas shifted around his body as he pulled them up.  He wondered if Bruce wore these particular pajamas often.  
  
He tried to stop thinking about that.  
  
It was a silly, physical crush.  Nothing more.  He just had to...stop dwelling on it and the urge would go away.  Clark rolled over.  Then he rolled over again.  He stared at the ceiling, which had some crazy detailwork on it, flowers and leaves in the plaster.  He counted the leaves for a while.  He couldn't sleep.  It figured.  
  
The Manor was silent, a deep, thick silence that Clark never heard in Metropolis, in his little apartment facing the highway.  He closed his eyes.  He needed to focus on something to relax himself.  
  
Deep below the Manor, he heard Bruce's heartbeat.    
  
Almost without meaning to, he narrowed his hearing in on it, on Bruce's heart and the sound of his breathing, as he had on the airplane.  It took a moment to focus so intently, to make only those two sounds echo in his ears, but he managed it.  He didn't want to hear the clicking keys of the computer, didn't want to hear the squeak of the chair as Bruce turned.  Just his heart.  Just his breath.  That wasn't eavesdropping...so much.  He wouldn't hear any secrets that way unless Bruce talked aloud to himself, and Clark doubted he did.  Clark would just stop listening if he started talking.    
  
He lay in bed, nestled in silk and cotton, the steady, calm thrum of Bruce's blood in his ears, the low, even whistle of his breath in his mind.  It was soothing, he thought sleepily.  It would be pleasant to sleep this way, surrounded by just those two sounds.  
  
Bruce's heartbeat suddenly jumped.  
  
It settled into a slightly faster rate, and Clark heard the other man take a long, almost shaky breath.  The heartbeat spiked again, slowing down very gradually.  Then it started to accelerate at a very slow rate.  
  
Clark remembered the exercise equipment, imagined Bruce in workout gear, turning from the computer to the pommel horse, his hands steady and sure, his legs scissoring the air like wings.  Shadows in his dark hair, eyes closed, lost in the rhythm of the workout.  Floating.  Clark could see the lines of his body as he moved.  Bruce's heartbeat was in his ears, intimate.  He should probably stop listening, but he couldn't seem to remember how, half-asleep, dreamily imagining Bruce starting to sweat slightly, the sheen of dampness cool on his skin in the underground air.  It would taste like salt.  Clark licked his lips.  
  
Bruce's breathing was slightly ragged.  Perhaps he was on the rings now, powerful arms holding himself still for so much longer than any other human could bear.  A thin white t-shirt, maybe, clinging against chiseled muscles by now.  He shouldn't be listening.  Bruce's pulse in his ears, through his body.  Speeding up so slowly.  Clark realized dimly that the silk on him was unbearably cloying, soft...he felt his hands on himself, pulling down the pajama bottoms almost despite himself.  Bruce made a small, breathy sound, a very faint "oh."  Clark imagined corded muscles tense on the rings, frozen, holding steady, stiff with anticipation...  
  
Clark wasn't going to do this.  He wasn't.  The sheets--  
  
Another breath from Bruce:  sharp, almost surprised, fading into throttled huskiness.  
  
Clark scrabbled for tissues at the side of the bed.  
  
Maybe he was on that high bar, his long body soaring, controlled falling.  Bruce's heartbeat in Clark's ears was hammering now, the other man's breaths harsh and deep.  Clark was moving with those breaths, moving closer.  Closer.  He saw Bruce falling.  Clark wanted to catch him.  Wanted to hold him.  Tell him it was all right, he'd never let anyone hurt him so again.  The look in his eyes when he spoke of Seio.  Clark couldn't bear it.  Wanted him to look at Clark that way.  With those incredible eyes, sad under all the cynicism.  Lust spiked through him, and something else, something he didn't want to look at, something dangerous and frightening.  _No, no,_ he thought, alarmed, _Stop now, stop it, don't let yourself--_  
  
Far away in the cave, Bruce's breath caught, gasping, nearly a sob, and his heartbeat stuttered frantically.  The break in the rhythm snapped some line of tension drawn through Clark's body and he felt himself twist wildly in the bed, against his hands, stammering out the words he had tried to keep from saying, the emotions he had tried to keep from feeling.  He said them.  He felt them.    
  
No turning back now.  
  


* * *

  
In the cave, Bruce Wayne was curled up in the womb chair, wrapped in scarlet cape.  His shudders faded away slowly, the muscles in his body going lax, soothed.  He pulled the cape closer, feeling its warmth touching him, caressing.  Comforting.  
  
He slipped into sleep with that protection around him and for once had no nightmares at all.  
  
In his bed on the third floor, Clark Kent pried dazed eyes open to look at the ceiling, not really seeing its rococo details.  Not just lust at all.  And it wasn't going away.  The air was very quiet, the night very warm.  
  
It was still only spring, but it felt for a moment almost as hot as summer.


End file.
